MS revenue has continued to climb to this very day, with only a drop during the recession. Outside of Apple, there aren't many companies that wouldn't take this type of revenue growth at this size.
The article makes a mistake a lot in the tech sector make which is that if MS isn't doing better than Apple then its in serious trouble. Doing worse than Apple is hardly an insult. There are probably no more than a couple of companies in the world that are doing better than Apple. Yet, there are few F500 companies that can match MS's revenue/profit growth -- yet almost all can beat its market cap growth.
Not only that, but there are precious few other tech companies that have gotten spanked so hard by regulators litigation about anti-trust issues.
It was only 13 years ago the idea of Microsoft offering a free web browser bundled with their OS was considered dirty pool. In fact, in the EU, Microsoft is still facing issues about bundling a media player for free with it's OS.
Imagine Apple having to install a Zune store and Amazon store along side iTunes with every iPhone or iPad they sold.
Yes - seriously. The amount of effort (person-hours etc) that goes in inside Microsoft to satisfy litigation demanded regulatory compliance is staggering.
Revenue is going to have a long tail for MS because it takes so long to migrate from one system to another. I think looking at revenue and saying "see, they're still growing! Everything's fine" is a mistake. The important questions are; how much of that revenue is from threatened markets (not just from competitors but from obsolescence as well)? How fast are their new markets growing (they are having success here with at least XBox)?
http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/revenues_ttm#zoom=5
MS revenue has continued to climb to this very day, with only a drop during the recession. Outside of Apple, there aren't many companies that wouldn't take this type of revenue growth at this size.
The article makes a mistake a lot in the tech sector make which is that if MS isn't doing better than Apple then its in serious trouble. Doing worse than Apple is hardly an insult. There are probably no more than a couple of companies in the world that are doing better than Apple. Yet, there are few F500 companies that can match MS's revenue/profit growth -- yet almost all can beat its market cap growth.