I think you are still missing my point. I don't find the fact that they had a monopoly in the o/s market (i.e. Windows) to be the problem. If they create a better o/s, or market it better, they deserve the market share they get. What I dislike is they hurt the consumer by pushing out developers who want to create software for Windows if it competes with a MS product.

For example, if MS increases the cost of Windows by 20% and bundles in Microsoft Money for free, how do you think that will impact Intuit (Quicken/Quickbooks)? How is Intuit meant to compete under these conditions, target only Mac users? It's an unlevel playing field. This is essentially what they have done for a lot of applications (Windows XP now includes cd burning software, mp3 players, etc, and is a lot more expensive then previous versions).

Or worse, imagine if they bundled free forum software into IIS. We can compete by making our products better, but we are at a serious disadvantage as MS's is always free. Not only that, but they leverage their position by forcing third party retailers, integrators and vars to use only their products or else lose favorable pricing on the o/s.

In the end, this hurts the consumer. That's what antitrust laws were designed to protect.

Do you see what I mean?

Cheers,

Alex
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