Not the OP - but I think you miss the relevance of point 5. Tech is littered with the irrelevant remnants and skeletons of "giant unstoppable forces". Look at Sun - in the 90s they were unbeatable, by 2004 they were quickly growing irrelevant. Oracle seems to be on the way out. Cisco too - they haven't done much exciting in a while, in a lot of circles they are viewed as the company holding networking back.
Other companies no one could unseat:
* DEC
* Xerox
* Apple (a couple of times)
* Corel
* Lotus
* IBM (a couple times in a couple fields)
* And on and on.
The point is that given a bit of time, Google will mess up, someone will come up with some new tech, and/or google will implode under it's own crushing weight.
I'm responding to the fact that OP claims MS is not a good engineering firm. I don't think that point is arguable. We are not just good, we are among the very best in the world in terms of engineering achievements.
Of course, whether we survive is another question entirely! I did not speculate on this, nor would I. Who knows what the future holds, we've just this year basically bet the company on some fairly risky things.
That said, I'm all for hating on large corporations, but the idea that Cisco and Oracle -- literally the market leaders in their respective domains -- are "on their way out" because they don't innovate fast enough is not a very convincing argument. :( Precisely who poses them an existential threat at this point? I see no one at all.
Other companies no one could unseat:
* DEC
* Xerox
* Apple (a couple of times)
* Corel
* Lotus
* IBM (a couple times in a couple fields)
* And on and on.
The point is that given a bit of time, Google will mess up, someone will come up with some new tech, and/or google will implode under it's own crushing weight.