>> This is still eminently possible.

Everything is still possible, like RIM making a comeback (who still has 6x market share than that of WP7) - it's just not likely.

>> As an aside, by implication you're suggesting that market leaders displaced in the past (Netscape/Sony/BlackBerry/etc) were neither smart nor talented.

Nope, I'm suggesting Microsoft has never had competitors as smart, talented or as resourceful as who they're facing right now (not that they're previous competitors weren't smart - they're just now in a completely different league).
Somewhere in the last decade they went from being the most feared tech company to one that is no longer even viewed as a competitive threat:

http://www.geekwire.com/2011/googles-schmidt-microsoft-not-d...

>> In past eras of technology, one company has ruled. Microsoft and IBM, for example. But now, Schmidt sees a “gang of four” companies providing the major consumer technology platforms

>> — Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.

It also doesn't help that they've seen many high-profile employee defects - many of whom are now working for Google. They haven't been the place to be (if you're an elite hacker) for quite some time.

If you look at the past focuses of all the different companies you'll find a pattern of Microsoft doing all the chasing - where they try to get their finger in every new market pie and mostly failing (besides XBOX). They tried to take on Google's Cash Cow with Bing, Apple's iPod with Zune/Kin, Amazon AWS with Azure - now they've had a complete rewrite of their Smart Phone OS to try compete with iOS/Android and still can only muster 1.3% Market Share (even after shelling $1B to Nokia) http://www.geekwire.com/2012/chart-microsoft-nokia/

The only hurt they've been doing lately is to their only real partner, Nokia - after they Osbourned all of Nokia's WP7 products when announced earlier this year that NONE of the phones Nokia is selling will be able to run WP8 - with no release date when they have a device that will?! The only possible excuse for this madness is to see Nokia's sales and market value crashing so they can pick them up for a cheap buy later.

The re-imaging of Windows 8 are warning signs of desperate times for Microsoft, as they're trying to leverage their Desktop OS Monopoly to compete with the iPad - but at the cost of disrupting one of their primary Cash Cows and actually providing a worse UX for Desktop users. Win 8 does look pretty but it's frustrating to use! I'll still buy a Win8 promo licence but I'm waiting for the first ServicePack UX with improvements before I'll even consider the switch.

>> If you dig into any documentation from Microsoft that speaks about their vision you'll find that their model is based on a lot more than "Smart Phone + Tablet". It includes phone, tablet, laptop, PC, console, TV, desktop, server, and cloud. Think about that for a minute.

They can pack as many complex and numerous features in as many devices as they want, but if it doesn't appeal to end consumers it will be as good as their current efforts to date.
The Post-PC world is a consumer market, a place where Microsoft's brand has no mind-share.

You can roughly measure this by looking at the popularity of some of the brands:

https://twitter.com/google - 5.1M

https://twitter.com/facebook - 4.3M

Apple's too cool to have a twitter or facebook account, but they do manage some popular brands on twitter:

https://twitter.com/iTunesMusic - 2.9M

https://twitter.com/iTunesTrailers - 2M

Meanwhile in enterprise land...

http://twitter.com/microsoft - 267K

To conclude: smart money is not on Microsoft winning the hears and minds of consumers in this Post-PC world.