That's their perennial problem. They had an app market, smartphones, tablets... before the above, but they couldn't figure out how to sell them.
They could have been Apple.
Besides, Microsoft practically is Apple.
Apple market cap: $571 billion, and heading down, with a business that will continue contracting as they're pushed out of China
Microsoft market cap: $438 billion, and rising again
Azure by itself will end up being more valuable than the iPad and Mac businesses combined (both of which are declining).
That is why you see Facebook so eager to buy new competing companies before they get huge, they know a lot of young people are not moving to facebook, so they want are going where the new kids are going.
It seems few big companies are able to maintain a culture of continuously trying to reinvent themselves and find the next big thing.
In addition to buying the next big thing (effective but requires $$$) I think intentionally trying to disrupt/reinvent your own products before your competition does is a great way to not miss the next big thing.
Not really. What we called apps/smartphones/tablets before the iPhone/iPad was not really the same thing.
Microsoft were the first to release Windows as a full on tablet-OS, at least half a decade before before even the iPhone existed. Forget about the iPad. That was at least 10 years later.
Microsoft delivered a full version of Windows XP (which was what was current at the time), capable of running all Windows software. No emulation. No limitations.
The problem was that most Windows software weren't really nice to run on a tablet, so the platform had limited appeal. Besides that you had the hardware issue: A "tablet" at that time was at least as heavy as a laptop.
It was way before its time, and as such, was doomed to fail. But don't come and claim Microsoft foresaw tablets as a platform for limited capability computing for answering emails only and such. That's what Apple delivered.
Microsoft had the right vision, and they were willing to execute. It's a shame it didn't turn out better.
It was sort of like the Internet before the web, it was something only a geek would love. Weighed five pounds, ran hot and you needed a stylus to interact with it.
Palm should have owned the smartphone era but they didn't have a vision where it should go. Steve Jobs did, he set standards and didn't ship until they were reached, end of story.