Interesting question. I have to agree with radeldudel - it's funny the usual immediate reaction from the MS-is-evil crew.
MS is, obviously, ruthless and large. And Bill Gates is obviously clever and cunning.
But, if you look past the whole big-is-bad thing, you will see that MS do a great deal for 3rd party developers and their users (which also benefit themselves) - a lot of giving things. Many of which radeldudel mentioned (one he didn't was application backwards compatibility).
Of course, as Steve has mentioned, it really depends on the attitude, not the actions. After all, those same actions might just be selfishly (dark) good business practice.
I'd have to ask someone who actually works there, but my thought is that they do spend the majority their time thinking "what would be most awesome for everyone" rather than "what would get us the most profit". Making MS (and BG?) a light company.
Interesting side-thought about BG's thematic "nemesis": I think RMS is (also?) a lightworker - but he's fouling it up badly by trying to "infect" everyone with lightworker syndrome.
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