I'm guessing you don't own their stock. They have one of the best dividend payouts in the sector. MS in the last decade has been low risk and steady rewards.
Total returns are what matter. Stock appreciation plus dividends.
If the broader market returns 10%, you can't say, "But I got a 3% dividend, that's apples to oranges." In the end it's all part of the total return.
I'm not arguing that dividends don't matter - on the contrary they matter a lot. But a stock with low total returns over time isn't saved just because the dividend portion of that is high.
Total returns is calculated at the point of sale. How do you argue this and not cherry pick? For instance, as mentioned this stock is very low risk so if you look at the drop during the crashes, you'll notice that it doesn't fall nearly as hard as other riskier stocks (risk vs reward). For a rock solid stock (low risk large cap) that offers great dividends, it's really hard to beat MSFT.
There are 2 ways to look at it:
1) Look at total returns after the fact. Over the past 10-15 years, Microsoft has underperformed the indexes, even on a risk adjusted basis. (If you want to compare it to low vol stocks rather than tech, look at DFA's value fund) Generally high dividend stocks outperform low dividend stocks over the long haul, so this non-performance is even more striking.
2) You can make a judgment that in the future this will change. What's the basis of this, when most stock pickers are wrong as often as they are right?
