All companies are both predator and prey. With inscrutable insider rules like this Microsoft cannot move fast enough to survive as either.
Seems I was right about Sun, not sure yet about Microsoft. I now think Oracle is in a better position than they used to be.
One of the major things I noted was that Microsoft, despite a major institutional aversion, has been slowly developing and expanding services businesses. They have continued to do this, for example now offering to host Linux VPS's via Azure. Their services offerings in 2003 were more anemic than they are today. They are on the right track to deal both with open source competition and long-extended upgrade cycles.
I don't think Microsoft is about to die. They may be cut down to size but I think their offerings are large and diverse enough that they are more likely to be pressured to evolve than disappear. Many businesses in fact do this, see IBM's transformation into one of the world's largest IT services firms in the world.
1) Cash positive operations and cash reserves
2) Healthy services business (customer satisfaction, etc) These are important because they are a hedge against open source software and upgrade cycles that extend as hardware matures.
3) Lack of vertical integration/insularity
4) Organizational awareness of issues.
Sun scored relatively low on these, Oracle depended on how heavily you rated customer satisfaction and customer perceptions, and Microsoft scored high on everything but healthy services businesses, but there they were growing and trying lots of things.
And at least there _are_ guidelines. Have you ever worked at a small company? There are certainly exceptions (I'd gamble that Fog Creek is one), but most of the ones I've worked at or for have had salary and promotion schemes that basically came down to some mix of hiring manager's whim, highest priority for the company today, your public visibility before joining, and whether you have some family connection to the owners.