“What’s shocking is that the cash cows, specifically the Windows operating system and the Office suite, have managed to finance all these idiotic efforts for so many years. While Microsoft’s profits and sales were way down this last quarter, it is only a matter of time before losses begin.

The cash cows are dying of neglect. This company cannot keep its eye on the ball because there are too many shiny objects to distract it.

via John Dvorak’s Second Opinion: Is the party over for behemoth Microsoft? – MarketWatch

Dvorak has a long (but still incomplete) list of Microsoft’s forays into things that make it absolutely no money.

I’ve long stated his exact point (most recently here) — that MSFT is trying to do way too much and losing sight of what it actually is. Plenty of people jump on me, pointing out how much money they’re still making. I say that’s true, but the real risk is the future. The future that may now be beginning to play out.

I absolutely agree that Microsoft needs to have a comprehensive online strategy as desktop software declines, but that doesn’t include all the crazy stuff they’ve been doing simply because someone else has had success at it.

Even Xbox, which is a rare success in a field the company came late to, isn’t making it very much money.

Windows 7 should stop the bleeding short term, but long term they really need to cut out all these distractions.