I disagree. I don't think Bill Gates could change a thing about Microsoft's downward spiral.
I've been around long enough to see the arc of MS's success since Windows 95 (wasn't paying close attention before that).
I never saw a company that could really create products that consumers demanded on their own merits.
What I saw instead was a company that got itself into a critical, un-dislodgeable, dare I say it - monopolistic - position in the PC market and milked that for all that it was worth.
Now, finally, after 20 years, the market is moving to a place where there is less dependence on the Windows operating system; alternative platforms are finally big enough to start makign Windows irrelevant.
Microsoft will never be able to produce the next greatest product because they never created a next greatest product. They just rode their lynchpin position in the PC stack to undeserved fortune. And without the DNA to actually innovate, they have absolutely no hope of making inroads into markets that they didn't luck into back in 1982.
Good riddance, Microsoft. Never has so much money been pumped into such an undeserving company.