Not always, no. There are famous quotes by people from Henry Ford to Gene Roddenberry that all come down to "people don't know what they want". And it's true, if MS asked what people wanted, 90% would say XP, solely because they're used to it.
This is actually something I think about often. Steve Jobs' "genius" was that he always told people what they wanted, then gave it to them.
Microsoft, on the other hand, always CLAIMS to make changes because "that's what people want." They do endless research to see what buttons people click after they click this or that button, and then they make those buttons bigger so they're easier to click. They arrange the Office Ribbon based on what they see people doing. Everything, EVERYTHING is based on research, both through direct surveys and blind feedback from their software running in the wild... ...and yet, when they make the changes, most people seem to respond negatively. But Microsoft won't revise its changes -- or allow a smart, Steve Jobs-like human to make the decisions -- because they have all this research, so they "know" what people want. "You say you hate this? Well you're wrong, you don't hate it, and I can prove it."
TL;DR Microsoft actually seems hamstrung by its own design methodology. It designs by committee, vote, and statistical study, rather than by inspiration -- and its slavish adherence to those methods means it has a hard time recovering from its own mistakes.