Microsoft should also give strong consideration to supporting Mozilla if things continue to heat up with Chrome for Mozilla. They gave up on proprietary web applications, for the most part, a while ago, so they can afford to see IE become a niche product if it means their other services ranging from search, to servers thrive. That would be in keeping with their history, like when Bill Gates invested money into Apple to prop them up.

Microsoft should also give strong consideration to supporting Mozilla if things continue to heat up with Chrome for Mozilla. They gave up on proprietary web applications, for the most part, a while ago, so they can afford to see IE become a niche product if it means their other services ranging from search, to servers thrive. That would be in keeping with their history, like when Bill Gates invested money into Apple to prop them up.

Microsoft should also give strong consideration to supporting Mozilla if things continue to heat up with Chrome for Mozilla. It's not like Microsoft would really have much to lose, since their premium development tools are already focused on creating web applications that will work in any modern web browser (quite the opposite of their goal at the start of the millennium). Just imagine Microsoft making a $100M-$200M “endowment” for the Mozilla Foundation to provide a constant, interest-based stream of revenue to ensure basic R&D can remain safe and stable like when Bill Gates invested money into propping up Apple.