Developers have a wide range of alternatives to Microsoft products, so Microsoft must compete on the merits of its products. If I don't like SQL Server, I coul

Developers have a wide range of alternatives to Microsoft products, so Microsoft must compete on the merits of its products. If I don't like SQL Server, I could choose between Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and many other RDBMSes. However, non-developers, particularly those using desktop operating systems, have limited alternatives to the Windows ecosystem. Applications that are exclusive to Windows are still a major reason why many people are still using Windows, though thanks to the Web and mobile computing this is less of an issue than it was 15 years ago. There is also still the fact that most retail PCs ship with Windows by default; options for purchasing PCs with Linux are still rather limited, though once again this situation has improved greatly in the past 15 years. Sure, there's the Mac as an alternative to Windows, but Apple does not compete in certain use cases and price points, whereas the Windows/PC ecosystem covers most use cases at a wide variety of price points. When you're the 800-pound gorilla, you don't have to worry as much about the other animals in the ecosystem. I remember the days of Internet Explorer 6 and how that browser was allowed to stagnate, giving time for Mozilla Firefox to rise out of the ashes of Netscape Navigator and offer an alternative so compelling that it forced Microsoft to compete again. I feel this way of thinking may also explain Microsoft's approach to controversial features such as telemetry and UI changes; where will users migrate to? Migrating to the Mac or Linux requires tradeoffs that a wide amount of users have decided through their actions are not worth migrating away from Windows despite some of Windows' problems.