Re: "goal to shoot for over the next decade"...
> They did recognise the existence of the Internet fairly early
The first edition of 'The Road Ahead' made no mention of the internet at all. Later printings did add this.
With Windows 95, MS had the original MSN which was a closed environment for Win95 users only and was isolated from the internet. Their response was not just 'poor' it was trying to shut it off.
> some capability to predict trends (eg: tablet computing)
MS is very poor at predicting trends. What it tries to do is to _control_ trends. The tablet concept was around before Microsoft existed (see Dynabook). While MS may have been putting Windows on Pen and Tablet devices for quite a while, this obviously was _not_ the trend. It was only when something completely different came out, ie _not_ Windows, that it became successful.
Microsoft corporate culture is to control with an iron fist. By using contracts, 'partnerships' and discounts. When cheap netbooks with Linux started arriving MS killed these off by wielding discounts and reviving the old XP. With ARM tablets (such as WebOS and Android) MS has brought out WOA in order to be able to wield discounts to have these forced into using Windows/Metro, or killed off. It has already worked for WebOS, HP could not afford to lose the discount on all its Windows PCs.