Steve Ballmer finally realized what makes Macintosh and Linux afloat - they have community, and Microsoft hasn't. In a cnet article he tells his MVP's how they can get community in the microsoft circles as well. But Steve, I think you are missing the point. Macintosh users and Linux users didn't gather around a fire one night and said "you know, we should have a community, that would really kick ass."

According to Clay Shirky, Communities can't be build, they only grow. He also writes that you can either help a community grow by giving it a fertile environment for growth, or you can force it to grow at a rapid pace and in a preset direction, which isn't very fruitful.

As far as I can tell, Steve mentions the possible key to Microsoft success elsewhere in the article - [...] We can't beat them on price, but we have to add value. - apparently this parameter doesn't enter his equation.