SMB seems alive and well? I don't see an "Extinguish" there. You seem to be conflating "beat in the marketplace" with EEE. Netscape didn't fail because of Acti

SMB seems alive and well? I don't see an "Extinguish" there. You seem to be conflating "beat in the marketplace" with EEE. Netscape didn't fail because of ActiveX. They failed because web browsers and web servers became free. Competing office suites struggle not because Microsoft extended some underlying protocol. Like it or not (and I personally don't), Office delivers an incredible amount of business value to its users. Platform independent dev-tools were, and are, still around. But like the browser, it's tough to make a living selling dev tools when they are generally free. Microsoft has been a very successful company for many reasons. It's not clear that "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" is one of them.