THE state of Microsoft is appalling. Don't be misled by what they pay the media to say. With Ballmer ousted amid many other high-level departures (we used to cover those closely until about a decade ago) it's hardly surprising that Microsoft creates a fake expectation of growth (or fake prospects) while aligning itself more closely with the military. Bill Gates 'left' the Board last year, the layoffs accelerated around the same time (including Azure layoffs), and nowadays more money is spent on bribing/manipulating the media than on R&D. GitHub users are walking away (it's hard to just buy market share as it's becoming another CodePlex, just like SoapBox, the so-called YouTube competitor). There are also large-scale LinkedIn layoffs, Skype users walk away (Microsoft had almost a monopoly in VoIP, but that rapidly slipped away), and we mentioned the collapse of IIS earlier today. Internet Explorer/Edge became just a niche browser (they're just copying Chrome now), Microsoft became totally insignificant in the embedded space, Windows Phone users barely exist anymore, and Chromebooks rapidly replace Windows in many sectors, especially education.