Invisible Shield for Apple iPhone 4!“Don’t mean to be alarmist, but the odds are increasing that Microsoft’s business will just completely collapse,” Henry Blodget writes for Business Insider. “The market still thinks Microsoft’s long-term prospects are pretty good, though. The stock is trading at a respectable 14X P/E. The company has cash flow gushing out of its ears. The consensus is that Microsoft will keep growing, just more slowly. But the odds are increasing that even this will prove to be wishful thinking.”

MacDailyNews Take: May Steve Ballmer…

Blodget continues, “Microsoft has a lot of different businesses, but… the vast majority of its profits come from Windows and Office. The world has changed radically in the past few years. The Internet has continued to free app-makers from dependency on Windows or any other desktop platform (and, thus, from dependency on Microsoft). Apple’s iPhone has revolutionized the mobile business, unleashing a whole new wave of personal computing devices. Apple’s iPad seems on its way to supplanting the low-end PC business. Importantly, none of these trends depend in any way on Microsoft’s original monopoly and cash cow, Windows. None of these trends generate so much as a dollar of revenue or profit for Microsoft. (Microsoft is nowhere in mobile. Or tablets. And it is reasonable to think that, in these two huge growth businesses, nowhere is where Microsoft will always be).”

MacDailyNews Take: …remain Microsoft CEO…

Blodget continues, “Big companies are starting to ditch Microsoft Office for Google Apps. If this becomes a trend, Microsoft’s second huge cash cow will be under immediate threat. When will that happen? Maybe not this year or next year. But in all likelihood soon.”

MacDailyNews Take: …for as long as it takes!

There’s much more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers "iWill" and "Norm" for the heads up.]