I'm not so sure it's as much gloom and doom as the author portrays. If Microsoft doesn't try to maintain it's business division software dominance on the most popular platforms, that line of business is doomed. And it's not a small business [1]. If Microsoft executes well on these apps and ties in Office 365, SkyDrive, Lync, and/or Sharepoint, this would leave them with a very nice recurring revenue stream and continue their productivity application dominance.
[1] http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/10/microsoft-1q13-earni...