More Advice for Microsoft

I have been working for a while on a post that would summarize all of the advice people are giving Ballmer and Microsoft.  With the whole market cap thing last week the flood of advice has me so buried I cannot read it all -- let alone comment.  So here are a couple good recent ones you may want to read:

• Fast Company: Argues that the thing to do is bring back Bill Gates.
• Motley Fool: Makes the case that Apple did not pass Microsoft, but rather Microsoft is killing itself.
• Information Week: A pretty good rant about the cloud, the market perception of "Microsoft as rigid, backward-looking, reactive, and afraid to compete" and the whole iPhone ban.
• Blogger Andrew Brust: A good list of things to do -- mostly focussed on the consumer space (again).
• Mini Microsoft: Can't have a list like this without a sweeping post from Mini - Microsoft.

If Microsoft really is in its final death dance -- will the wolves come and start picking at the carcass?  There are so many parts of Microsoft the challenge of listing the assets in prioritized order would be even bigger than tracking all of this advice.  

If I had a few billion to spend, I don't think I would buy any of the consumer stuff.  I think maybe Hyper V or SQL Server could be good.