I like mine a lot. It's basically become my primary laptop. Anything that I need beyond Chrome, I can do in Linux via Crouton.

Win NT had a hardware abstraction layer that supposedly made everything portable... I think you still had to compile applications to whatever native architecture it was running on though. Maybe they will go back to promoting .NET which ran bytecode? Who knows with Microsoft.

Here's a real life car analogy... GM in the 80's "unified" all their drivetrains. The same engines/transmissions were available in the Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Chevrolet, etc. The only differences were in the style, body, and nameplate. It didn't particularly go over well with auto enthusiasts or consumers in general. The GM brands became rather superfluous, and consumers were quite lukewarm to the generic "all-in-one" options for GM cars. GM cars from the 80's are considered to be the worst built and least desirable of the company's history. You don't see any of those models still driving around with classic plates on them. Few consumers wanted them then, even fewer want to preserve them now.

That would make little sense. You acknowledge in your post that the product line is dying. Milking everything you can out of it makes sense, but if you don't replace it with something else, you'll end up like every other IT company that decided to just sit on their cash cow until it was too late. Novell Netware, Banyan Vines, RIM/Blackberry, SCO, all companies that cashed in mightily on one trick wonders, only to crash and burn incredibly quickly when their product was surpassed by someone else. One of the reasons why Microsoft was so successful in the 1990's was that Bill Gates refused to let anyone get ahead of his company. Your recommendation is one of certain corporate death.

I can now finally get a Google+ account and do ratings on Android apps...

Too bad it's a few years too late... Had google offered this when they launched Google+ they might have actually become a decent competitor to facebook. Now it's too late.

And Google Play comments, too...

Microsoft already reinvented itself once--in the 1990's, and only because a few passionate employees convinced Bill Gates that the Internet was worth something. Gates, being ever paranoid, decided to flip the company on its head and turn it into an Internet company in record time. Gates isn't there anymore. While Gates used to wake up in the middle of the night terrified that someone might steal his business. Ballmer managed to sleep through the decade and let everyone else eat Microsoft's lunch. Can Nadella recreate Bill Gates and redirect the company? We'll see... He doesn't have the advantages Microsoft did in the 1990s. He has a tough job ahead.

Microsoft could become a business only company... that would put a dent in their "Surface" vision, of course. But, they have nothing to lose with Xbox keeping them relevant in the consumer space. Why throw it out? It would be such a waste!

A lot. What better way to sell advertising than to totally integrate with the TV experience and sell some stuff, too. The Xbox's capabilities would dovetail nicely with Google's vision, and they'd make it a lot cheaper, too. Imagine advertising supported games, so you don't have to shell out $60 every time? Google owning Xbox would be a dream come true for them.

They got the word Microsoft into millions of home and unlike with their home PC, made it into a positive experience. Any money that might have been lost was made up for by the marketing gains. When people think XBox, they think Microsoft and successful product--two words that don't usually go together. That's worth any price Microsoft may have paid for the experience. Considering how much Xbox charges you for everything and everything, it certainly takes an extraordinary level of incompetence to lose money on something like that.

So they get rid of their most successful consumer product.... the thing that puts the word "Microsoft" in people's houses? That makes sense--typical MBA driven, stupid, short sighted decision that would be so Microsoft. I'd love for Google to buy Xbox. They would do some pretty cool things with that. Microsoft would never sell to them. Samsung, maybe? They'd love to get a bigger piece of the living room, and they might do some cool things with it!

And yet, they are still making gobs of money. In fact, they are more profitable than ever. Moves like this don't really help anything.. not even the bottom line, since the massive cuts crush morale and limit the ability of the company to innovate to keep ahead of the competition.

The Timex Data Link USB was a very nice smartwatch for it's day (i.e. 5 years ago). It was even programmable, if you could decipher their bizarre assembly language and could fit your app in 900 bytes (yes, bytes) or less.

A Dick Tracy speakerphone feature... massively important for those who charge their phone a lot and sadly missing from all but Samsung devices. An open API and ease of programmability is also nice. Pebble has really hit the moon on that one. Some of the apps people have come up with have been simply amazing. Unfortunately, It will be interesting to see how Android wear stacks up. It's a shame that only Pebble is going with the "minimalist" approach with an old fashioned, low power LCD screen. There's no need for high res on a watch, especially when it will be used outside in the sun a lot.

They ruled unanimously against the NFL in their antitrust suit. This SCOTUS is very business friendly, but they aren't monolithic.