Very well said. That's what it boils down to, isn't it? It seems to be a common tactic amongst American intellectual property holders -- "If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em." Naturally, the DoJ takes a look at this and assumes something's wrong. They're trying to apply 20th-century economics to a 21st-century business model, and it just won't work. If they wanna start investigating tech monopolies, they can take a hard look at residential broadband instead. (Don't get me started there.)
MS has had broader experience in the software field than any other company; most people don't realise that a majority of the non-x86 platforms in the 80s had a piece of Microsoft code somewhere in their OS or BASIC interpreters, nor that Microsoft's been one of the Mac's biggest software developers several times in its history, even post-Win9x. MS has earned its user-base, and the billions of dollars in research & development it took for them to get it.
I also agree about OS bundles being an important launching point for new users. Most of them WILL seek alternatives when they grow more proficient and find what they use inadequate; it's not like the alternatives are difficult to find. This may not have been the case before the Internet became what it is now, but with the insane amount of software out there at this point, it's just not an issue.
