Yeah I think this is all valid - i really mean it more as a product line and the lack of practical substitutes before recently (especially on the server side),

Yeah I think this is all valid - i really mean it more as a product line and the lack of practical substitutes before recently (especially on the server side), not the specific details of the instruction set v others. They were basically the only game in town for a while. Had they licensed it, yep, it would have been different.