This is, of course, the main target of FUD: to imply that the long-term viability of the product is in jeopardy. Thus statements like: ``Are you sure you want to bet your business on Microsoft? What if the Department of Justice breaks up Microsoft tomorrow?''. Note that ``What if'' is a common predecessor to FUD because it's hard to counter an ``implied'' FUD. This is, of course, an example of FUD#2 (fabrication), since the likelihood of Microsoft being broken up anytime within the next four-year deployment cycle is similar to the likelihood that the Earth will be struck by an asteroid within that time period.
Another example of a long-term viability FUD is to point out that the industry is moving toward low-cost commodity operating systems, and that it is always more expensive to build an operating system from scratch than to build one from commodity components. The reality is that Microsoft is likely to be hurt badly by the move to commodity operating systems, but Microsoft is in no way in danger of going bankrupt anytime within the next ten years, and certainly not within the current four-year deployment cycle. The example of DEC shows how long it takes a major company to spiral downwards once it has ``missed the boat'', so to speak - it took over ten years between the time that microcomputers became ubiquitous and the time that DEC was finally broken up and its pieces sold off to the highest bidder.