I have doubts about whether MicroSoft will survive.  How can they keep on top while antagonizing so many people?  Even after being convicted of anti-trust violations, they appear to be conspicuously creating new violations.  

And of course, having driven every commercial OS competitor out of existence, they are now the high-cost / low-quality vendor. :-) 

The reason I bring this up is that I am wondering which way my company will go.  When I bring this up to Management, they don't appear to be budgeting for the massive amount of money that eventual upgrading to Windows XP will cost.  But on the other hand, Management doesn't appear to be willing to go to ''Wild and Crazy'' stuff like Linux either. -- JimCrockett
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They'll survive.  Will their dominance survive?  It remains to be seen.  MicroSoft will be with us for a long time to come.  The question is whether they can push their new stuff on us (DotNet) without leveraging the old to force it in (as some MicroSoft cheerleaders keep claiming they won't.)
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That's what IBM thought all those years ago. Unassailable position in the Mainframe market. All it takes is for the paradigm to shift enough and Microsoft will follow the same route.
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So in answer:

	* will they survive - yes
	* will they be big - yes
	* will they be dominant - probably not.
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Microsoft will remain dominant for many years, unless they make several very big mistakes or piss off the legal system so much that it essentially becomes illegal for them to make software. Read InsideTheTornado to see why. Once you've read that book, the reason is simple to explain: They are the biggest gorilla in all of software, and MooresLaw isn't due to finish for at least fifteen years (my guess is much longer). My prediction: In five years, Microsoft will still be at the top. In ten years, it's too far to predict.
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Microsoft will survive -- and thrive.  (Disclaimer: I worked there for about six years.)  Microsoft has a lot of technical muscle (the NT team was a well-coordinated 3000+ engineers by the time I left it), but most of all, Microsoft is very, very paranoid.  It also refactors its org tree very often, in order to adapt.
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What time scale are we using?  Given enough time, nothing survives.
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''All it takes is for the paradigm to shift enough...'' July 2014, mobile phones and tablets provide the paradigm shift.  Android approaches 50% market share while Windows struggles at 14%. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249709/Microsoft_gets_real_admits_its_device_share_is_just_14_