[mkhpalm]

Realistically... the biggest reason for irrelevance is Microsoft's concept that an operating system should be a prime source of revenue. An OS is the garden you want people to come to so you have prime real estate to sell your wares. Charging admission works great if you're the only garden in town... and not so much if you're not. Microsoft is putting itself into this position by forcing the market to move into the other, more easily accessible gardens. It has very little to do with UX/UI or anything like that. Most consumers actually don't want to learn how to do anything new if they can ever help it.

I'm constantly amazed that all these "experts" haven't figured out what happened to the 800 pound gorilla. Quite simply put, other gardens that people could live with and easier to access suddenly showed up. The vendors making and selling their wares went to the place people were at or wanted to go to. Its simple economics and you can point directly to the people who decided that WGA was a good idea for killing MS. Piracy itself is what made windows dominant to begin with.