What most analysis if Microsoft misses, and I think this one does as well, is that Microsoft is mostly not an innovator. What they have always excelled at is execution. They were late to the internet, phones, and now the cloud. But given their foothold (in the IBM days, this used to be called Account Control, but we don't whisper that anymore). So when it was clear that cloud was the thing, they came up with Azure, and as usual, are executing on this very well.

Because of this, I don't think it is a good example for startups to follow. I think that successful startups are innovators.