And I'd imagine that this decline accelerates as _developers_ begin migrating to other platforms, since the applications they created are what made that platform appealing to non-developers. That's why Steve Ballmer was jumping up and down, shouting, in a sweaty fervor. Say what you want about pre-Nadella Microsoft, but they definitely recognized the importance of having lots of developers writing software for Windows. And they treated developers like VIPs.

>gradually and then suddenly.

governments, institutions, and large enterprises (like, thousands of people) do not have the power to do anything "suddenly". they have contracts, and cash flow concerns. you cannot suddenly replaces tens to hundreds of thousands of machines.

20-50 years down the road? maybe! they (microsoft) surely arent doing themselves many favors. but they are certainly not in "significant danger" today.

Wait, I'm confused, are you calling moving from Windows to Linux a "decline"? Because I can agree with that ;)