Indeed. During Gates era, they did well starting from DOS, Windows, Office, and Explorer. Then in Balmer’s era they basically did no innovation at all, and their stock value by the time he left was lower than when he took over. Natela has been a very good CEO (same as Pinchai at Google, and Cook at Apple). Those lost 15 years or so, essentially allowed Apple to return, and Google to become a behemoth. They kinda fecked up the succession of Gates.That's true also. It was the Balmer era where MS rested on their laurels and let start ups like Google dominate a new space.