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That's a warped version of the events. They participated in standard bodies, but never implemented the recommendation, even when it was based on a Microsoft technology. Like svg. Based on Microsoft's VML and HTML +time, they flatly refused to support it in any way what-so-ever. They kept the crufty half broken predecessors, but never improved them or went to the standards. They held everyone back by not doing anything at all to keep up with the developing standards. Which meant that when a competitor did arise that followed the standards that microsoft itself helped develop, everyone was held back by microsoft.


Your xp argument is also flawed by the lack of compatibility between operating systems. You could not in 2005 switch to any other non-Microsoft program and expect the existing programs to just work. Monopolies that have high start up costs to compete with tend to stick around for a long time, despite a lack of development.

Office...? Not sure why or how that held anyone back for a decade. It could be better, but its fairly decent, but your opinion of open office is about a decade old. Its good now. Office 2000 was decent, but I'd say OO.org is better because of the openess of the file format and the fact that they don't break compatibility with older formats. Access 2000 couldn't open Access 1997 databases without converting them to the 2000 format, which meant any one still using 1997 version was SOL. OO.org will never do that BS.