The entire article needs to be posted because 90 percent of it is a "what if" scenario.
2. Employees gradually switch away from using Windows PCs for work.
This trend has not played out that dramatically in 2012
3. Windows 8 fails to stop the iPad.
Gulp. It's still early, but every most data points say Windows 8 is not going to make a dent in the iPad.
4. Loyal developers start to leave the Microsoft platform.
We're not sure if this happening or not.
6. Office loses relevance.
The death of Office, has not happened, though. Despite Google's attempt to create Docs, companies aren't giving up on Excel.
7. Microsoft's other business applications start to erode.
If Windows continues to fade, and if Office starts to fade
8. The platform business collapses.
9. The Xbox was never going to make up the slack, and Microsoft can no longer afford to keep investing in it.
10. Microsoft suffers a huge quarterly loss. Ballmer retires to play golf.
What you see posted below each bolded bullet point is what the autor says in the first sentence or at the end of each sentence. So pretty much everything is a what if and that is why point 9 that the author makes and that the OP posted is taken way out of context.
Everyone needs to read the entire article. What they do is map out a what if scenario and in their opinion if certain things happen than this list from the article will be their snow ball effect. So the thread title is very misleading. It is saying Xbox won't be able to sustain Microsoft as a company if all these other things happen. The reason I didn't put anything under 8, 9, and 10 is because 1-7 would have to happen and in the authors opion 8.9. and 10 would then go into effetc.
