[jonnathanson]

True. Or companies that came back from the total brink (Apple, most famously, but also IBM, to some extent HP, and others).

What's interesting to me is that you rarely hear about software companies that come back from near-irrelevance after a prolonged bout with it. I'm sure there are some obvious examples I'm not thinking of right now. In some respects you could almost even make the argument for Microsoft, assuming its E&D business continues to flourish and become more important to the company overall.