I was just making an observation, not making an excuse for Microsoft. Apple may have "won" long ago vs. MS for all I care, if that is what you want me to say. I don't know how my reply got twisted into something that I didn't say.
I was also just making an observation that I thought was amusing. I was just riffing off of your post, not degrading it. Not all replies are arguments.
I agree that Microsoft has done a lot of great research, and I hope that some day they can turn more of it into products. Alas, from reading the pub directory at llvm.org, for example, I get the impression that when something similar to Bartok & Singularity become products for real users they're going to come from elsewhere.
"Bah, it's revenue that matters"
October 2010: revenue(AAPL) > revenue(MSFT)
"Bah, profit is the real metric"
April 2011: profit(AAPL) > profit(MSFT)
"Bah, basic research is where it's at!"