Thanks, Samsung

When news of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phablets catching fire and even spontaneously exploding broke, I reacted in predictable fashion, racing to Twitter for an all-day mock-fest. But a week later, it's no joke: No government has required Samsung to recall the incendiary devices, customers are still using them, and one gets the feeling that we're on the cusp of a major disaster, with loss of life, perhaps even involving an airplane.

So on that note, I'll just say this: Thank you, Samsung. Thank you for this wonderful and crystal clear reminder that you don't have to be Microsoft to screw up at such a high level.

And, no. This isn't a joke.

I've been writing about personal technology for over 20 years, and if you think back to the early 1990s---assuming, of course, you're old enough to even remember the 1990s---you'll understand how and why Microsoft became such a focus. This was the time of Microsoft's ascendancy and Apple's fall, the time when personal computers came of age and Windows became a true blockbuster. By the time the 1990s concluded, Windows and the PC defined personal computing. And Microsoft was a juggernaut, inescapable.

A decade of antitrust defeats later, a significantly less effective Microsoft found itself unable to respond to smaller and nimbler companies like Google, a resurgent Apple, and a growing cadre of often-ridiculous Silicon Valley dimwits. So today's Microsoft is still big and successful---thanks, inertia---but it's not as influential as it was in the past and it certainly doesn't set any agendas. Today's Microsoft is a follower, not a leader.

But I still focus on Microsoft, not so much out of inertia but because this firm, alone among its rivals, seems grounded in things that really matter, like productivity and getting actual work done. So it's been frustrating to watch Microsoft lose its way, as it still does with its Apple envy, or its inability to simply collectively admit that consumers just don't give a crap about it anymore. And maybe never did. Microsoft, after all, was inevitable, not desirable.

The defeats have been painful, and have been spelled out many times before, from Media Center to Zune to Windows phone and everything in-between. But this past year or so has been particularly tough, between Surfacegate, Upgradegate, Webcamgate, and all the other issues, big and small, that have dogged the software giant.

It's tough because these were all problems of its own making.

It's hard to defend a company that deceives its customers into upgrading to Windows 10, and then calmly explains to you that it had no choice.

It's hard to defend Microsoft's months of silence as $3000 Surface Book computers were hot-bagging it around the world.

And it's hard to defend how a company as technically sound as Microsoft could be so inept as to quietly make a major platform change to Windows that caused webcams to stop working in Skype.

One thing I know from personal experience is that how...