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But it wasn't just the inevitable entropy of a once aggressive giant slowing down with age. Microsoft had made some grievous mistakes. Although Microsoft had produced Windows CE back before the turn of the century, it somehow missed the innovation cycle that took smartphones into the stratosphere. iPhone and Android were entrenched, and Microsoft was left behind. Windows Phone eventually came on the scene, but it was far too little, too late. Microsoft also, somehow, missed the secret sauce that made the iPad a success. Yes, Microsoft had Windows XP Tablet Edition far before there was an iPad, but it was merely a curiosity, not a category killer. Once again, Microsoft was left behind. To counter this, Microsoft took two actions that set the company on what, at the time, seemed to be a death spiral. It spent (and wasted) $8 billion on Nokia's phone business and, well, it did everything related to Windows 8.

THE TECH CLIMATE OF 2012 To understand these mistakes, you need to look at the tech climate in 2012, when Windows 8 came out. At that time, the iPad was blasting through the roof in terms of sales. It looked like there was no end in sight. It also looked like the traditional world of desktop and laptop computing was on its way out. Microsoft had missed most of that transition. In a bid to remain relevant, it attempted to force itself into the world of mobile and touch. The horror movie that was Windows 8 was the result. It was an operating system with a UI completely unusable by hordes of loyal Windows users. Instead of the Start menu, there was... nothing. Users had to guess their way to any sort of menu at all. The entire OS was aimed at forcing users to touch, when most were still using a mouse to do real work. Then there was Windows RT. Microsoft was out there, selling inexpensive "Windows" machines to the masses that couldn't -- get this - run actual Windows software. Yeah, that turned out real well. Users were confused, baffled, and angry.