Why did Microsoft do it?

Yes, MS is a big company and I didn't say otherwise.

For the record, I'm not an Apple fanboy; the wife's iPhone is the only Apple product in our house. I buy more from B&H than I do from Amazon and I have a kind of love-hate thing with Google.

But MS faces some serious challenges. Their stock has been flat for a decade and most of their new product/market initiatives have flopped. New Windows and Office releases are becoming something of a yawn.

That is a very unhappy position for any major business and their management.

Unless MS can roll out successful new products and re-establish a growth trajectory, they will fall by the wayside. That might happen very slowly but it could also happen rather quickly in some scenarios.

Now, it could also be said that the US technology sector as a whole is suffering from many of the same problems. Apple may cease to innovate without Jobs. Intel, HP, Cisco, and many others face challenges too. The technology sector has been through a 30 year boom. And now it might just be running into a bust.