#7: Yes, but they don't do this any more than Sun does with Java or Oracle with some of their software. You can play what-if's all day, but when it comes down to it, there is very little innovation from Sun, AOL, and Oracle. They know this and so they are frightened when MS continues to innovate. The only way they can stop MS is to battle them in the courts rather than out-innovating them.
This is nothing like AT&T back in the 60's. MS doesn't own all the power lines or the patent to telephone technologies. At ANY time, someone could come out of nowhere with a really good OS and blow MS out of the water. Linux was a good show how this COULD be possible (Linux wasn't the one because they were so blinded with their 30-year-old Unix technology). BeOS had promise as well, but, as always, it seems no company out there is competent enough to market their OS. The only reason Microsoft is so successful is that they can get their sh*t together 70% of the time. Microsoft really isn't that great of a company, it's just they manage to get it right most of the time. These other companies shoot themselves in the foot 70% of the time and make foolish investments of time and money on frivilous technologies that don't advance their IP or innovation status.
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