It seems to me that probably the single biggest problem at MS -- especially in recent years -- is that a lot of the turkeys making decisions would really rather be at Apple.
because MS is a commercial entity and Apple has demonstrated that a hollywood style GUI sells. that's all you're going to see from that direction henceforth. people will buy new computers to run their new GUIs faster. bonus. you can use a modern linux os with an environment like icewm that uses as much resources as windows 98, if you want.