Microsoft: "We'd have been dead a long time ago without the Windows APIs"

[Mike Hearn]

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39152686,00.htm

At least they're honest about it - I especially love this quote:

In the commission's report, Contorer's email was also blunt about 
Microsoft's shortcomings.

"It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to
stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high
TCO [total cost of ownership], our lack of a sexy vision at times, and
many other difficulties ... Customers constantly evaluate other desktop
platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope we
just improve Windows rather than force them to move. In short, without
this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a
long time ago."

Higher TCO huh? D'oh!

thanks -mike