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To justify OS sales an OS company either needs to make large fundamental improvements to how the OS performs or bundle more applications with the OS. People who develop small utilities know that there is a good chance with every OS release their utility will either be bundled or made obsolete. Being a utility vendor amounts to seeing fundamental flaws in the OS and exploiting them. Obviously the OS manufacturer is likely to see the same flaws.

Apple has more to lose by selling crippled OSes that require many expense utility add-ons then they do by loosing a few developers for utilities. Especially given the fact that due to the fact that now that they’ve gone with Unix they’ll be picking up an enormous developer community for free.

If anything Apple should go back to bundling their office package in with the OS. Microsoft’s OS has essentially become the Win-XP + Office combo. If apple sold the OSX + Appleworks combo for the same $130 the extra value of the software bundle would eliminate the extra cost for the hardware.

Finally on the subject of Microsoft brainwashing… Nobody really takes the “best” claims seriously. What Microsoft has usually offered was a standardized volume inexpensive product – low cost high volume. More people purchase Ford than Porsche, Bic than Monte Blanc and Wal-Mart sells more clothes than Sax’s.