Fast Company | What Money Can't Buy

The truth is, the failure to consistently produce dramatic and successful innovations may be less a comment on Microsoft than it is on the nature of innovation itself. Innovation is, after all, capricious -- a function of luck and good timing as much as brains. It's tough to score once, much less repeatedly, with big-money bets and sky-high ambitions.

Microsoft could do more, I agree. But they are often ahead of their time. Two predictions: 1) If Apple announces an iPod phone, remember Microsoft was there first. Basically, Windows CE/Mobile is able to do great multimedia stuff in a very small space. People gawked at needing to do these things on a PIM. Now, the phone is the PIM and may be your MP3 player. 2) Video on a PIM is something else people thought superfluous. Microsoft provided it on handhelds. No one else thought it necessary. Think again and thanks, Microsoft.