Should Investors Count Microsoft Out?

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tdp2664 InvestorPlace Click to Enlarge Some stocks need no introduction. And yet familiarity breeds contempt. That’s pretty much the state of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) right now, which has taken a pretty good beating the past two months but could be in line for a decent recovery if the bulls fight back in December. Microsoft is the world’s largest developer and manufacturer of software. Its bread and butter still is operating systems and the Office suite of productivity tools like Word and Excel — the products that helped launch the company to fame in the early 1980s and '90s. In the last fiscal year, these two product lines were responsible for 60% of the company’s massive $69.9 billion in revenue. Although everyone has predicted the demise of Microsoft’s hegemony for years, researchers at Gartner figure that the Windows operating system still runs 78% of all computers in the world today. Another 24% of the revenue total is attributed to Microsoft’s second-largest division, Servers and Tools, which provides large enterprises and governments with the software needed to run everything from websites to data centers. To extend its reach to the living room in recent years,