Microsoft Jumps the Shark

It's kind of pathetic really. I am typing on another computer right now, a Google Chromebook, $250 and dropping, because I can't get my $1000 Windows 8 machine to work. I could use a Mac, but they annoy me too, and I am not smart enough for Linux. The only company that treats me like a human being, for the time being, is Google, so here I am.
What happened to the vision of Bill Gates? No matter what ideas he might have stolen from Steve Jobs 30 years ago, what made him tick, what made him successful, is that he believed in the beautiful chaos of freedom, but just like the pretensions of the west coast elite, the more they talk about it these days, the less free it gets on their watch, as the money become more important than 'the revolution'. A buddy of mine works for Microsoft. Here is his encapsulation:
"Everyone is too rich to care!"
Their new products are shit. They seem desperate, a naked attempt to be a touch screen (competing with the Ipad), a business machine (their former bread and butter), Yahoo homepage, and a gaming and entertainment platform all at once (what evolved on it's own in the case of gaming, because of Gates' libertarian view of the platform, and what they feel they should steal from Mac, who are way ahead in the case of entertainment), doing none as well as they could, nothing convenient, and everything automated that shouldn't be and everything un-automated that should.. it's all just confusion. Meetings there must be pure penury, with people reminding everyone that the computer has to be easy enough for an 80 year old grandmother to use while others try to push every idea from everyone else done badly. Everyone still there must know that everyone worth a sh$% took off like 10 years ago, leaving the retards and unambitious.
I tried to restart or shut down my 1k doorstop, but there is no obvious way to do so, other than holding the off button and counting seconds, hoping it had shut off and not just gone to sleep. It's almost worthless, so badly put together as an interface that I marvel anyone would by such a thing other than out of habit, or specific need, like some software they run that you can't run on a mac or chromebook, as was the case for me.
For all of Windows XP's frustrations, it actually worked, you could troubleshoot yourself, and the world responded, with like 600 million machines... it was the golden age I guess. We are now watching the death of an empire, and we are paying the price. The last bit of desperation I learned of was that they figured out the last thing anyone really needs them for is word processing, Microsoft Word, so they have decided to try to ratchet as much money out of that as they can until they drive the customers away there too. How quickly can I download Open Office, a freeware competitor that works better in many ways? In about ten minutes it turns out. I can thank Bill Gates for that freedom, and I can thank the company that he is now letting wallow for pushing me to it. I'd rather cure Malaria in Sub Saharan Africa than try to fix this mess too!