I've read a bit on Vanity Fair's article about Microsoft, and it sounds abhorrent.
On one side, you have a company that has managed to stay plenty profitable for a decade then on the other side, you have a company that isn't investing on innovating products to make them mainstream. Like the HP tablet from the early 2000s, there wasn't a market for it or a place at the time, but if it was invested in and MADE mainstream we'd be in a totally different conversation right now. Their business plan sets them up for that, see what works and get into that market. It's almost predatory actually, but it worked. Things are different and doing what WORKED, doesn't work now.
Having said that, I see some promise though with Windows 8, Windows Phone, Bing, and Xbox. One of the suggestions to fix Microsoft is to break up the company. I don't know if that means actual different companies or divide them, but I bet it's to divide. That's what they're doing. The past couple years, Microsoft has been silently consolidating their entertainment division of games and media into the Xbox brand. Games for Windows are found there, music, video, ect. Then there's Windows 8. That is making the push for tablet devices and building the Windows products in that division to work harmoniously while integrating Xbox entertainment. Then there's Bing, their search engine that is losing them money. It didn't have a place before and wasn't even the DEFAULT for Internet Explorer, but now that's being integrated into Xbox, is integrated in Windows Phone, and is now FINALLY the default home page for Internet Explorer 10. And lastly and importantly, there's Windows Phone. It's an interesting device that keeps in line with Microsoft's believing in "two devices, not more." That is the platform that converges and mobilizes a lot of the different brands on the go. It's built from Windows RT code, has built in mobile Office, has Xbox entertainment built in, has Bing as default, and most importantly, it's what sparked the change. The Windows Phone team risked a lot bringing Windows Phone, either they continue building Windows Mobile and fail, or rebuild the product and fail. Losing the fear of risk to innovate a product probably inspired Windows 8. Microsoft knows it's a risk, but that ALLOWS comes with innovation.
I read an article a long while ago dealing with metro design. It was about this booklet about metro design that was distributed to every team in Microsoft and in it's first page,"What you hold in your hands is a new beginning. Think of it as a design revolution at Microsoft. These are our principles and our assets, together in one place for the first time." It's starting to fall into place why Microsoft is pushing the metro design, because of the Windows Phone 7, it's HOW they are making the company work again. It's simplifying down the essentials of Microsoft, consolidating products into the different divisions, and have the brands work together because they're built together and designed together obviously in the metro form. A decade of lost innovation and markets is a tough poop. A decade of failed and potentially flailing products sucks. But to a new decade of a fully united, harmonious ecosystem where Microsoft products go hand in hand with each other is good poop. Enough said.