Windows (closed source antiquated locked down software console for x86 PC's) and computer operating systems (*nix, or POSIX compliant operating systems) don't have anything in common. Microsoft has nothing to offer to computing but well-packaged expensive crap and a whole load of corporate bullshit.
All those people waking up to linux 20 years too late and writing articles about linux and Microsoft... what part of "post-PC era" don't they understand? Thank Microsoft for killing the PC, thank Google for AOSP and preventing right from the start that the post-PC devices are locked down in the same way Microsoft and Apple locked down the PC.
Windows is like Google's AOSP. "Get the real Vanilla AOSP experience", or "Get the TouchWiz experience" or "Get the Sense experience", is the exact same thing as "use MS-Windows". Community Android distros are so much more powerful and fast than commercial Android distros. CM, AOKP, Omni, etc... have so much more to offer to the educated user.
The difference with Windows is, that on Android, it's all Android, based on open source software and an open source kernel, and even if it's not Android, but FirefoxOS or ReactOS or SailfishOS or Tizen, etc..., it's still intercompatible, except maybe for Google Mobile, aka GApps, which is the new age Windows junk. Even iOS and Windows Mobile attempts to implement Android compatibility. Microsoft is even developing a clone of the old tech that enabled the old Android distros, the Dalvik HAL, which is now being replaced by the much more powerful ART, but in a few years time, Microsoft will maybe have a their clone of the Dalvik HAL sorted, and they can start to offer compatibility with old defunct Android devices, who knows...
It's not necessary for Microsoft to do anything else than just die a bad death as soon as possible. Nothing that can be done to Microsoft or the power mongers behind it, can ever make up for the damage that Microsoft has done to the Western world, the damage to the economies, the damage to the educational system, the damage to the users, to companies, etc... and to be honest, so what, the world continues to turn, and as x86 dies with Microsoft, the important thing is that in the post-PC world, Google can't do what Microsoft has done, there are valid alternatives that are actually popular with consumers and non-enthusiast users. Ever more people flash their devices with real Android community operating systems, not locked down castrated commercial Android variants. They overclock their devices, without GApps they have a lot more functionality and roll out their own clouds, they overclock their devices, they get several days of battery life, etc... they discover right from the start that the commercial crap is well marketed, but means nothing compared to the power of community developed open source software. The hardware is cheap, the software is free, community support is the only kind of support that is available, people are educated right from the start, it's a world-wide effort, including a lot of countries where the US software patents are an insignificant joke. There is a definite linux-feel right of the bat in the post-PC world, and I like it. I'm a big fan of post-PC devices, especially of community Android development. It's a huge and very active innovative market, and Android does a lot for productivity, in that it enables users to crank up their productivity to the level of a fine tuned linux PC system, but without the effort, because it's all easily available from F-droid or from Github or dev host, etc... and even from the Google Playstore for those that still have to discover the true power of Android. It's a completely different situation than the PC situation before Microsoft and Intel (aka Wintel) monopolized the x86 platform. Google knows that it's a different situation, they know that they can't keep everything locked down. They know that K9-Mail works better than their own GMail app, and there is nothing they can do about it, or do about users finding that out.