What the article misses is the essential core: Microsoft is the Big Evil. Only Google really competes in that space. The others might like to compete, but Apple is too stand-offish, Amazon too random, Facebook too inept, Russia too old.

Microsoft and Google are always on the lookout for the next bigger Evil. Google eagerly sheds anything that turns out not to be It. Microsoft is slower at that, not giving up as easily, and often late to the party, but sometimes things finally work out for them better than could have been expected (Xbox). The goal is literal World Domination, and odds are one or the other will achieve it. Younger generations won't even remember when they didn't already have it, or be able to imagine a world where they don't.