I agree that Microsoft has a lot of potential in the consumer market, I’m just not sure I have confidence they will succeed. It’s up to them.
As far as Apple not innovating, they certainly lack the vision of Jobs, but they still have the market and ability to lead the way. I see AR as being big with them. There is talk of them getting in the eyeglass business (real eyeglasses with AR abilities). I wouldn’t count them out just yet.
Yeah I'm not counting them out entirely. I also suspect they are working on an AI search engine, and for sure they will probably try something like a HoloLens.
I just think that their refusal to make a hybrid OS, and how they are lagging behind with iOS is indicative of a sort of commercial contentment that is often detrimental.
(As an aside, MSFT also has a glasses form factor AR screen tech in proto. Main issue with it so far, is it's monochromatic, ie the size limits the quality of the display - and of course you need to fit in a battery and processor as well, and smart glasses that already exist struggle with this, creating some extra bulk - so I think it will be quite some time before anything both affordable, and desireable to the public gets to that size - certainly a niche product is possible, but AR wearables won't be "the next big thing" for some time yet - for one they lack any substantial ecosystem. MSFT is sort of ahead here with the UWP platform and the new design language, but it's still pretty early days)
Another issue there is that mobile networks cause cancer in close proximity to the body. Wearing something all day on your head is probably not going to be advisable. Carrying a phone as well, somewhat defeats the purpose. So that's another obstacle.
I won't say google doesn't have similar issues. Yes they are making a hybrid OS, and software wise they are fairly innovative (AI, AR, VR android is ahead of the curve), but they still depend on one profit stream that count potentially get toppled and some of their ideas haven't caught on well (Like google VR, nobody uses it).
They need to diversify, in the same way that apple needs something more than the iPhone.
I wouldn't bet my life savings on any of them being major players in 30 years time, Microsoft, apple or google. But if I _had_ to bet, I would probably pick Microsoft, if only because they do have more than one income stream and so they can endure radical market shifts. It also helps they have good quality partnerships with other promising companies like Samsung, steam and amazon. One benefit of being a perceived underdog - other companies will join hands quite earnestly in order to topple the king. I think the amazon partnership could be very fruitful in the long run, as they seem like forerunners ATM in IoT, servers, and MSFT in cloud technology. Samsung might pay off later too, should MFSTs gambit in foldable tech give them a place in foldable tablet phones (we're going to need a shorter name for that

).
Steam of course will absolutely pay off, in VR, especially when xbox gets mixed reality. Consoles I think are going to be the primary portal to VR - especially zero set-up mixed reality, because they perfectly blend a good experience, with simplicity/accessibility. When it gets to a cable-less experience and evolves a bit (and gets nice and cheap), I can see VR taking off. Indeed, I think it'll probably grow before AR, AI, IoT or graphene tech make substantial waves in the consumer market.
No doubt Samsung will keep it's place in mobile tech, even if the OSes or players change, partly because they've always offered budget options as well, but also because they have TVs and all sorts, so that's truely their game hardware. If premium smartphones slow down, their business model can adapt.
Samsung is another company I have some faith will still exist as a major player in 30 years.