I'm sorry but I laughed. Amazon and Google are doing things today as we speak that are as sordid as anything Microsoft has done. The warehouse conditions and pressure cooker culture at Amazon have been repeatedly reported to be appalling and Google's planned Chrome ad blocker and compensation scheme is outright abuse of their dominance in search and ads.
Microsoft was ruled an abusing monopoly (though the remedies were exceedingly limited).
Google is presently operating under a US DoJ consent decree. I'd have to check what the status for Facebook is. IBM saw its court actions. AT&T was a regulated, monopoly-abusing entity from the 1910s, and the only reason you're making heavy use of Unix-based systems today is that AT&T's 1949 consent decree (one of several in the company's history):
There were similar battles involving Westinghouse, Edison Electric, RCA, NBC, Xerox, and Land, in the tech field, and Standard Oil, numerous railroads, etc., in other fields.
The point is not to excuse Microsoft's past behavior. The point is the common "Microsoft is the most villainous tech company that ever existed and ever will exist!" meme among older techies is basically ignoring the fact that, once a company gets to that size, nobody's hands are clean, even good old "Don't be evil" Google. To constantly repeat that meme is to demonstrate that one is living in the past instead of facing the reality of the present.
I did not say anything about Amazon, Google, Apple or other companies because those were not the subject. Note the 'not many' in the comment you replied to. The fact that other companies are bad does nothing to diminish what MS did (and I haven't seen Google finance a lawsuit against Linux yet, for one thing).
The reality of the present is that Microsoft is still at it with their telemetry, forced upgrades and piggy backing of things that further drive their business on what are supposed to be security updates.
> The fact that other companies are bad does nothing to diminish what MS did (and I haven't seen Google finance a lawsuit against Linux yet, for one thing).
Well, let's revise your original words to take that into account: "Not many companies have such a sordid history of unfair competition as Microsoft does, merely almost all of the ones of the same size and influence."
Rather takes a lot of the rhetorical weight out of it, doesn't it?
But Amazon and Google are power-abusive sordid companies that make GREAT products. In the past, it was easier to recognize Microsoft's bullshit because their power-abuse was combined with shitty products.
I think it was Eben Moglen I heard point out that the places in which software freedom has won over Microsoft turned out to be easier than might have been suspected 20 years ago because it was easy enough for free software to outdo Microsoft garbage. Now, with Google, Amazon, and Apple the power issues remain but the products they make are so much better, it's much harder to compete.
It was easy for Firefox to beat IE, not so easy to beat Chrome. And lots of people who were pissed off about Microsoft's power abuses give Google a pass because it's easier to go explore Google Earth and ignore the issues compared with just frustration about Microsoft's shitty software. Unfortunately, Microsoft is just as into abusing their power but has learned to be a bit less shitty in their product quality…
If the Justice department hadn't bungled the antitrust case over the wrong target (focusing on IE instead of their OEM rebate strategy used to corner the market) Microsoft might not have existed today in the same form.
No, they were unfairly fought. Don't let the fact that it is your former employer cloud your vision.
Not many companies have such a sordid history of unfair competition as Microsoft does.