Clearly, Microsoft is a prime reason for the ecomomic downturn. Companies have to spend money each and every year for license fees of Microsoft software when they could be saving money by using Linux/BSD and Open Source non-license fee based software (yes, they could have done this in the 90's). The real software market isn't in 100's of billions it is in the lower ten's of billions. Microsoft's ecomomic model has skewed the market and this is hastening the current collapse.