"Microsoft had nothing to do with the openness of the PC architecture." Actually, it does! You've mentioned Microsoft leverage - it could have been used a lot m

"Microsoft had nothing to do with the openness of the PC architecture." Actually, it does! You've mentioned Microsoft leverage - it could have been used a lot more Apple-like way, to impose a "Microsoft Application Store" or something, to racket every software company, to pillage every developer with "rights to develop" licences and to take "it's rightful cut" from every product sold on Windows. All those could induce a strong feeling of closeness. Yet, all those didn't happened under Microsoft rule. Those "goodies" we come to enjoy first-hand only in the great Apple garden! "...another company (or a consortium of companies) would have probably got to do that if MS had not been around." I am glad it wasn't Apple or another one with an Apple-like vision. It would have been a curse on the computing industry.