They gave up way too easily though. I don't think they ever had an interest in actually making a good browser engine. They've never managed one in their entire

They gave up way too easily though. I don't think they ever had an interest in actually making a good browser engine. They've never managed one in their entire history. Microsoft love mediocrity, the "just good enough" mindset. Nobody takes their products on because they really excel at what they do. Just because they have a huge installed base, they're not so bad there's really a problem to use them and they integrate with everything else (e.g. Windows) nicely. For example Slack is so much better than that turd called Teams but nobody wants to pay the extra because Teams is free with O365 and user frustration doesn't cost anything on the bottom line. This is why Apple really came out of the blue with Steve Jobs' razor focus on quality above all. Microsoft's goal is never to be 'best in class'. Because they don't need to be. People will buy it anyway.