I have a completely different view of how Microsoft behaved when it was dominant, vs Google today. Back in the day, most of the tech industry feared Microsoft. MS had a monopoly over hardware and software companies and bullied everyone. Google today doesn't have this monopoly that Microsoft held. Even the author's description of Google's strengths, "Google’s pillars of ads and search have become its Windows and Office", aren't as dominant as MS' products and definitely not for as long either. So I think it's incorrect to say that Google has become the MS of old. Those were the bad old days, when MS dictated how things were done in the industry.

While Google has tried to push the rest of the industry to its way of thinking, it doesn't always succeed, whereas MS in its heyday was quite capable of strong-arming the rest of the industry, time and time again. Google has generally pushed and supported an open source approach which MS is finally beginning to move towards. Quite a change for MS, nothing new for Google.

Kelly's article uses some poor examples and paints a glowing picture of MS. I think he's correct in that there's been a shift in MS getting a lot more positive press, but I don't think he's correct at all about how poorly run Google has become.

I realize this is short on specifics, but I don't want to make this too long. I'll agree with the critics of Android that there are problems, but in my view, Android has always been rough on the edges and is finally getting better overall. Especially compared to the early years.