Ballmer Can't Save Microsoft From Death to Blackberry, Google, Apple

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- From South by Southwest, I a.) called Blackberry's (BBRY) rise and b.) associated it with Microsoft's (MSFT) certain demise.

Since that March 11 article, we have heard nothing but positive things about the Blackberry Z 10 with BBRY stock popping roughly 14%. In the past, I would have called the former false optimism and the latter a dead cat bounce; however, times have changed.

When you decipher the writing on the wall, Blackberry's resurgence presents almost as clearly as its 2011-12 implosion. The concurrent death of Microsoft -- that's just obvious.

The headlines popping up shortly after I announced my bullish turn -- such as Nearly Half of Blackberry Z10 Buyers Switching From iPhone and Android via Forbes -- should have applied to Windows Mobile, but they never did, do not and never will.

Somehow, Steve Ballmer keeps his job pathetic failure after pathetic failure. And with much less bravado, Thorsten Heins impressively turns Blackberry around. But why?

First and foremost, Blackberry's marketing department has finally taken its collective head out of its rear. And its key partners have jumped back on the bandwagon. Dig how the company positions the new "Zed 10" in this excellent commercial:

I saw this BCE, Inc. (BCE) spot on Canadian television while watching hockey over the weekend:

Solid work. These messages will resonate throughout North America.

As I riffed last week, I just cannot see a scenario where Windows Mobile comes even close to taking third place from Blackberry. In fact, before the end of the year, expect the artist formerly known as RIM to firmly establish itself as a formidable No. 3 among mobile operating systems. My work from last week establishes this. While my Blackberry bullishness resonated, swaths of people from the intelligentsia to the peanut gallery didn't quite comprehend just how dire things will become/are becoming at Microsoft.

The clusterscrew at Microsoft goes far beyond the company's continued failure to gain mobile traction. We know its hardware -- across the board outside of Xbox -- is doomed. Over the weekend we hear -- via the great folks at the Boy Genius Report (BGR) -- that Samsung is seeing "lackluster demand for Windows-based products."

By default that means -- obviously -- they are seeing demand for products that run Google's (GOOG) Android operating system. But, beyond that, the typical retorts that the enterprise will refresh its PCs, adopt a few Surface tablets along the way and keep blindly mailing in Windows licensing fees will not fly much longer.

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