There is a fantasy in Redmond that Microsoft products are innovative, but this is based entirely on a peculiar confusion of the words "innovative" and "successful." Microsoft products are successful - they make a lot of money - but that doesn't make them innovative, or even particularly good.
Robert X. CringelyApple and Google will compete like crazy for our data because once they have it we'll be their customers forever.
Robert X. CringelyApple isn't the next Microsoft, you see. Apple is not the next anything because the role it aspires to transcends anything imaginable by Microsoft, ever. Google is the next Microsoft, so Google is seen by Ballmer as the immediate threat - the one he has a hope in hell of actually doing something about.
Robert X. Cringely