It's important to distinguish between being brilliant and having a brilliant idea. They are not the same. The folks at MS are undoubtedly brilliant (and ruthless and unethical, but that's another matter). But Microsoft as a company has not once produced what I would consider a brilliant innovation. In fact, it's arguable that Microsoft has been successful precisely because it has not tried to be innovative, but has instead followed the less technologically risky strategy of preying on the innovation of others.
If you want to dispute this, the most effective way would be to cite a counterexample. I've had this discussion with an awful lot of people over the years and so far no one has been able to come up with one.
1. C# -- Despite all its faults, it's a hell of a lot better than java and they've done some really interesting things with the CLR and type systems...
2. Photosynth & Seadragon are pretty cool.
3. XMLHTTP Request (what powers all this ajax stuff, that's microsoft)
4. Microsoft's birds eye view in their map applications.
5. A lot of the features that got dropped from VISTA were cool (new command line and the new file system)
6. The Microsoft intellimouse (best mouse ever made)
That's just a few off the top of my head... sure office & windows don't innovate too much; but microsoft access is a pretty important product because it solves a real business need (never really used it, but know tons of companies rely on it).
I agree these are "cool" but IMO they don't rise to the level of "brilliant". I suppose reasonable people could disagree. But I think everyone would agree that these ideas, whether they are "brilliant" or merely "cool" are not the source of Microsoft's success.
Well Microsoft's success comes from windows and office. I want to see anyone's brilliant innovations in those domains? The original spreadsheet, WYSIWG editing, and powerpoint all found the dominant design early on and have been going through refinement for years.
If you want to dispute this, the most effective way would be to cite a counterexample. I've had this discussion with an awful lot of people over the years and so far no one has been able to come up with one.