As much as it is fun to speculate I refuse to do that as companies do and act in a way that is just silly or possibly in this case egotistical.
So my main point will be on the issue of breaking past application support. This has to be done. If bill gates is against this then Apple's recent advances in marketshare won't be just a near-term surge they will be cumulative. Microsoft cannot continue to invest resources in this manner eventually Apple will overtake them due to the growing waste of human resources at Microsoft.
Also Microsoft should go to a yearly release cycle like Apple. I am not interested in their products and 5 years of waiting between releases to get innovation. Not interested in the least.