Faced with rampant security issues in the recently-released Windows XP, Microsoft in 2002 announced its Trustworthy Computing Initiative and halted all major software development so that it could fix the problems. Today, Microsoft needs a similar effort, but for reliability. And the stakes are just as high.

I've often referred to the iPhone as the meteor that killed the Windows dinosaur, the extinction event that hobbled the once-greatest personal computing success story of all time. But today, the greatest threat to Windows isn't iPhone, or Android, or Chromebook, or whatever other bogeyman you care to name. It's Microsoft. Its Microsoft's hubris. It's Microsoft's inability to own up to the fact that is continually and routinely breaking a very important contract that it has with its customers.