Has Microsoft ever really innovated?

Not a lot. But it has been very good at marketing things. There were several web browsers long before Internet Explorer came along (Mosaic, Netscape, etc), but Internet Explorer was the first one that most people came across.

This is very similar to Edison, who also wasn't all that good at inventing things, but also was good at marketing stuff. Many of Edison's "inventions" weren't his, but he made them popular so people thought they were his.

"Microsoft Word was released late in 1983. It was preceded by Satellite Software International’s WordPerfect, released in 1980 as SSI-WP. The IBM PC version of WordPerfect was released in late 1982, one year prior to Microsoft’s release of the similar MS Word."

MS Word was nothing like WordPerfect.

The article went downhill from there.