don't blame a company for being annoyed when interlopers piggyback on its hard work. I was sympathetic toward AT&T years ago when it said that other ISPs should not be able to piggyback on its cable modem system. After all, AT&T built it out. With this in mind, let's look at Microsoft. Microsoft made Word a standard, so why should anyone else make money from that company's hard work?
Of course, Microsoft didn't actually invent the word processor, or the spreadsheet, or much of anything else. But still, it did the best job of gaining market control, and Microsoft built out Word. What bothers me is that most of Microsoft's development work with Word and other Office products seems focused on making life miserable for the competition rather than actually improving the product. Powerpoint is so tired it's becoming pathetic, for example.
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