shares have also been hard hit in recent weeks. For a while , Microsoft ( MSFT ) shares seemed to be able to dodge the bullets that were hitting stocks that are highly tied to the PC industry. Earlier this year, investors held onto hope that a new release of Windows 8 would create a new upgrade cycle for the entire PC industry and help boost Microsoft shares. Some analysts and investors were also excited about the new tablet device called "Surface," which was launched in the past couple of weeks. However, now that both the Surface tablet and Windows 8 have been launched, investors appear to be far less excited about the future outlook for Microsoft. The future of PC is in doubt depending on who you talk to and it is not hard to find people declaring the "death of the PC." While the dominance and level of unit sales for "Wintel" PCs might never be the same, there still appears to be a case to be made for stocks like Microsoft. While many people think of this company as being the maker of Windows, it also owns other valuable lines of business like Skype which offers communication services, video game hardware and software such as the Xbox and Kinect and many popular game titles. While Windows and related software brings in the vast majority of Microsoft's revenues, Skype and video games do offer strong growth potential. For example, Skype has over 660 million registered users and that