> What if something like this was the purpose and vision for Microsoft?
They need to combine what they are good at while still focusing on what made them.
1. The XBox was a success, prior to big brother concerns about the One. They need to get back to basics: the fastest and best technlogy and the best games.
2. Their OS and enterprise apps were mostly a success, prior to cloudification (or SAAS-ification) and mobile. They failed at mobile and need to cut their losses and go back to focusing on desktop/server systems.
3. .Net and C#/VB.net and their development ecosystem has been a success. They should continue this, enterprise product lines and development support.
4. Office was a success, prior to cloudification. They should go back to software and focus on usability.
5. Things to drop/split off/sell to gain focus: Bing, Windows Mobile, any hardware, software, or services unrelated to the top 4 above.
There is something that I think brings some of these together: home automation. Not cloudified home automation, but developing an OS that supports it that is capable of running without a net connection. People need to believe and understand that it is not big brother watching from the NSA. They could buy up existing home automation companies and maybe a security company or two to get a hold of the market and be able to take advantage of much of the technology they have developed so far. They could utilize Kinect technology and their Windows OS tech to run it. By running the home, they serve the apps and licenses from there as well, completely removed from the net if desired- just a local network.
The vision would be "Microsoft enables products that your family uses so that you can be free, happy, safe and secure."