> Microsoft has all the pieces - money , good engineers, marketing etc.
They don't have the most important thing. Leadership. Everything about Ballmer reminds me of a salesperson who is trying over-hype a product in to selling it to you. With very little knowledge as to what the product actually does.
Like Ballmer, Steve Jobs is also not a tech nerd (in the sense that they are not developers/programmers or engineers), but Steve always seems to have a more in-depth knowledge about Apple products and knows it inside out.
On the other hand the top three guys at Google are hackers.
Leadership matters.