Back in the 1980s, the company enjoyed a near monopoly in desktop computing. Between 2000 and 2014, Microsoft's profits grew from $9.42 billion to over $22 billion. But despite its financial success, the company was slow to shift from desktop computing to mobile devices and cloud-based services. It's not that Microsoft didn't see it coming. It did. But the company prioritized other initiatives and didn't act as quickly as their competitors. A decade-long delay to properly address the market potential of cloud computing caused Microsoft to trail behind Amazon's 71 percent market share.