They famously did basically nothing to Microsoft and Microsoft continued to maintain a near monopoly for many years and do all the same things it had always done to keep its monopoly.

Some people apparently don't remember Windows 98 and how Microsoft tried to demonstrate that Internet Explorer is suddenly such an integral part of the OS that it's technically impossible to separate it.

It didn't work, they were forced to decouple it again (which was susprisingly simple), and despite the somewhat weak result for Win98 I think we can be thankful for that.

I don't want to imagine how Windows 2000 would have looked if they would have continued cementing IE6 into the frontend...

> Some people apparently don't remember Windows 98 and how Microsoft tried to demonstrate that Internet Explorer is suddenly such an integral part of the OS that it's technically impossible to separate it.

Heh ye. That was obvious BS. Wasn't there like, sometimes, it looked like IE was running as a widget inside an window? Like search or something?

You mean the "Active Desktop" I think, some small widgets on top of the desktop wallpaper which usually showed 404's because you didn't dial up to the Internet yet :)

Microsoft became much more diversified and interoperable than it was before that crackdown.

And whilst the EU was focusing on Microsoft, Google took the chance to have it's turn.

You are confused about Microsoft. They did (do?) have some bad anti-competitive behavior but they won because ultimately, they provided a competitive OS (and software suite) at a very competitive price and nobody was able to successfully offer a combination of hardware/software that could match that offering. Not Apple and not even Linux with their free stuff, and it still stays true after all these years.

If one company were to make a compelling OS as good as Windows for as cheap or cheaper, people would flock to them really fast.

We can talk about the software coupling all day, but similarly devs are going there primarily because that is where their customers are because of the cheap costs. Gaming and 3D software are notoriously Windows only because it's the only OS that has provided decent stability/features while allowing access to a competitive hardware proposition.

Now that Linux is somewhat viable, we can actually see some high-end software working there, in the 3D effects and video business.

Microsoft might be shady but at least they are providing good value. Apple is a major dickhead clamoring how much better they are while failing to actual value.

I am an Apple customer and I do think their OS is nice for many things but the reality is that outside of their laptop the value is extremely questionnable (and even for the laptop, because of RAM/SSD pricing you better have some justification for the benefit of battery life, otherwise its mostly a luxury).