> Developers are now forever beholden to the big corporates. Same as it ever was... Through the 90s and the early part of the 2000s, Microsoft had enough cont

> Developers are now forever beholden to the big corporates. Same as it ever was... Through the 90s and the early part of the 2000s, Microsoft had enough control of the market that it could often kill other vendor's products (or proposed products) simply by announcing that it was going to produce something in the same area of the market. So although the system was technically open, economically the market was controlled: there was only one platform that mattered at the time (Windows) and the prevailing view of the tech press, business buyers and consumers was that Microsoft produced the best software for Windows. So if Microsoft announced it was going to ship something in the future the general consensus was generally that the best decision was to wait and see what Microsoft shipped. It's fanciful to suggest there weren't issues with the old style Windows software market.