A quote from the New York Times
I would argue Microsoft does have a financial problem, and it’s been the fear of losing those massive profits from Windows and Office.
By doing everything it can to try to protect those profits, Microsoft has taken a defensive position for more than a decade.
And in technology, if you play defensive you’re going to lose.
The above seems to assume that the first duty of a corporation is to preserve itself.
Others argue that the first duty is to guard the value to stock holders.
The later goal may suggest a plan to shut down the company.
This is considered a failure in most contexts but the overall financial success of Microsoft precludes calling this a failure by any rational measure.
Of course termination would be performed so as to maximize the remaining and substantial value of the ‘obsolete’ products.
IBM tried hard to avoid having one division compete with another.
Such competition gums up some of the synergy of corporations which is at the root of the logic of their existence.
Profitable subunits can be spun off for further financial gains.
Shut down and declare victory.
On the other side the value of recent research by MS would be lost at least to the stock-holders unless such packages could be sold off.