Not only that, they kind of have to.. you can't legally track users under the age or (12 or 13 I forget which), so that means if they're aware the users are under age, they have to not track them.

I like a lot of the technology and software that has come out of MS.. VS is a pretty damned great IDE, and there's a lot to like. ASP.Net MVC is one of the nicer frameworks I've used, the Razor view engine in particular... That said, I stopped going to their developer presentations a couple of years ago, because every one seemed like an advertisement for Azure.

I like that Azure is there, as an option.. I also like that there's Joyent, Amazon, Linode and a dozen others. Options are great... But I'm tired of seeing it shoved down everyone that develops on an MS platform.

I've spent roughly half my development time for over two years developing towards node.js ... I find a much lower level of friction, that it lends itself better to modularization and can support multiple concurrent versions of libraries without having them all in the same bin directory. Not to mention imho better testing ability, and just a smoother cycle with less prescription in the core.

Ironically enough, I still think that Outlook + Exchange is the best tool combination out of MS compared to their competitors, and even that is much more open today than ever before. I don't think most people NEED MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. Especially with web tools for powerpoint and excel that are as good as their desktop counterparts. And Libre Office Writer in many ways besting Word... I don't see much value there.

If MS would really separate some of their business units, it could work so much better...

If Windows developed as a Core OS framework, with UI developers for desktop, xbox, and mobile separated, we wouldn't have to deal with Metro on the desktop, where it's imho a poor fit, but could have it in mobile where it makes more sense.

If the Office team were untangled and better able to target iOS and Android, a better job with OSX, and less tethered, they could be a powerhouse. Separate Outlook and push them back with the Exchange team.. or hell as a separate product. They could do what BlackBerry should have done and create a best of breed cross-platform mail app.

They've been so tethered to trying to integrate their marginal sales into windows + office that they've been strangled against competition that many of their departments should have been able to take advantage of.

In doing the above, their Visual Studio team could embrace other platforms better. Web Matrix is one of the best tools out there for NodeJS development, and most of the features haven't gotten into VS.

MS developed azure as a great platform to deploy too, but keeping a lot of their concepts tied to windows + vs, has restricted growth they could have had. Azure would have been better off without the heavy MS & Windows tie ins... they could have embraced other OSes earlier on, and perhaps been seen more favorably with them. Their PaaS levels could have even supported distributed/shared LXC deployments, and much better tooling.

Historically, MS has made most of their money with Windows and Office from business customers, and will continue to do so.

However, if they don't let their individual business units actually integrate, inter-operate and compete with third parties on a whole new level, I don't think that they'll find the niches that Oracle and IBM have found in the long run.

They'll be here for a long while regardless, but they won't have the same exposure to every person with a computer as the trend continues.