I am writing many times on strategies and competition related to Microsoft and I wanted to clear the reason why I relate to this company a lot and why I am not on their side with my advice especially when it comes to competition with new ventures:
1) To put it up front I think that Microsoft is an excellent company with many strong core capabilities and deep strategic thinking that makes them a very worthy competitor.
2) Many times their core competencies are too tough for new ventures to handle and the immediate response of "lose the fight" before engaging it becomes more prevalent. This is a state of mind that is a killer for innovation and innovation is something dear to me in person. Microsoft of course is not the one to blame for doing a great job for themselves actually we should thank them for raising the bar.
3) Microsoft according to my experience and not based on "hard" statistics is the number one news generator in the IT industry. They do a lot and they talk about what they do a lot; this makes it just naturally to relate to them a lot.
That's all.