Microsoft is still dramatically successful today. The problem is that people perceive differences in success, not absolute numbers. So if you were wildly successful ten years ago and you're still wildly successful, what the hell have you been doing? Why haven't you improved?

The problem Microsoft is facing is that they basically accomplished their mission statement. "A computer on every desk, all running Microsoft software." That is an accurate description of the world circa 2000. What the hell do they do now?

Google is likely to face a similar problem in the next few years. "Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." For all the flack they're getting lately, they've done a remarkably good job at it. People expect to have whatever information they need at their fingertips, and they get mad when they don't. You wouldn't see the vitriol toward bad search results that you do now if the Internet was like it was in 1998, because nobody really had an expectation that they'd be able to find what they were looking for then.