well i do understand his point. But i do think it is a case of apple and oranges.
A few years ago if you were in the tech or software business, then you were scared of MS coming in and stealing your market - by launching their own vaporware, that could be enough!
Nowadays most start ups are in the web arena, and in that market the one to be scared off is google - piles of cash, a brand that is still very strong, and still fast enough to react quickly.
I don't think it means MS is dead, even as a threat. I think its just a sign that most new ventures are in the web arena. If you are in the desktop software arena you probably are still scared of them killing your product with a 2 line press release...
It also shows that most of those startups aren't all that clued up about the industry they are in. If you are a startup you should be wary and informed about a lot of possible threats, not the just the big obvious one. There are a lot of very cash rich high tech giants that are funding lots of internal start ups and buying others and if you are not aware of the risk that people like MS, IBM, Oracle, CA, Adobe, Symantec etc. might step all over your little niche one day... then you are not doing your risk management properly