What you describe is Microsoft doing the absolute least they could do to accommodate their users who wanted to get online. Things like making the technology a little easier or having Word export to HTML -- I don't consider this "embracing the internet". I don't see how these can be considered as changing the direction of the company. The direction of Microsoft was not changed at all. Their cash cows were the Windows OS and the Office Application Suite before the internet got big, and those products were still the main focus and direction of Microsoft afterward.