That's the question the world's largest software maker, its customers, its developers and its rivals hope to get answered this week when Microsoft kicks off its annual developer conference. Called Build, the three-day event starts April 29 in San Francisco. Microsoft's objective for Build is pretty straightforward: convincing the world that the newest version of its Windows operating system adds enough new features and technology to push the software forward and gain mainstream acceptance -- not become yet another detour.

Build has typically been a place for in-the-weeds discussions about cloud computing and software architecture, But with the coming of Windows 10, due this summer, along with promised new info on Microsoft's ambitious HoloLens headset, Microsoft followers see this year's Build as a cornerstone event for the Redmond, Wash., company snoopy love woodstock iphone case and its CEO, Satya Nadella, Everyone seems to get that there's a lot riding on what happens this year, with interest high in watching a show where an industry titan tries to regain its swagger, Tickets, priced as high as $2,100 in January, sold out in 45 minutes, In 2014, Build tickets didn't sell out for a full day..

Twenty years ago, Microsoft created a marketing frenzy for its then brand-new Windows 95 operating system. Ads featured the Rolling Stones singing "Start Me Up" to help signal the company's biggest, baddest transformation, which was epitomized by the software's seminal "Start" button. Microsoft became the software king of the world in 1995. Today, the crown is gone. The company may never regain that glory, say analysts. Nadella, who took over as CEO last year, would appear to agree. The 23-year-old Microsoft veteran quoted German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche shortly after he assumed his post as chief executive last year, saying the company "must have courage in the face of reality."For Nadella, that reality is now a need to prove to developers that Windows 10 can be the system software for all types of screens -- desktops, tablets, smartphones and whatever screens become popular in the future.

"Windows 10 is a Hail Mary," said longtime Microsoft analyst Roger Kay, founder of Endpoint Technologies Associates, "They need to prove that they're still relevant."Microsoft isn't going away anytime soon, Last year, the company reported $86 billion in sales, with Windows running on 95 percent of the world's computers, But PC sales continue to decline as people snoopy love woodstock iphone case turn instead to tablets and smartphones, according to research firm IDC, And that's bad news for a company that makes most of its money selling work-oriented software, while businesses increasingly rely on multiple devices, most of which don't run Windows..

Microsoft has a paltry 2.8 percent share of the mobile software market, which is dominated by Google's Android OS and by Apple's iOS software for the iPhone and iPad. That's a massive problem considering that 2 billion people -- or more than a quarter of the world's population -- will have a smartphone by the end of 2016, according to eMarketer. It's also a big part of the reason that, when it comes to creating new apps, mobile and otherwise, developers rarely give Microsoft a second thought. "They're so far behind on phones that they would really have to come up with something near an act of God even to turn it around," said Rob Enderle, an industry analyst with the Enderle Group.