[bb75]

Let's see... Jobs is on his way out of Apple, depending on what kind of disciples he has, Apple may or may not survive without him. He's just too important for Apple, at least in my view.

RIM just announced a recall of Playbook. They're going downhill fast - perhaps if they get DalvikVM running flawlessly, that can be their lifeline until they can get their Flash based apps going/ported - IMHO, a long time in the making before any of this happens, so I think they're due for a downhill roll for a while before they come up, if at all ...

Android and Apple are pretty much eating everyone's lunch for now. Android's strength is its 'openness' (however ill-perceived that may be) and Linux. Apple's is its control over hardware and software.

MS could be looking to become like Apple here... control the hardware as well as the software. It might work - but in my view, they are at least 2-4 years away from having a platform as stable as iOS or even Android, which is relatively new.....

It's a tough call. Probably money well spent, but they can't afford to fuck up the execution. It's gonna require Ballmer to not sleep at night and lose whatever hair he's got left....