Last thing we have got from Microsoft is creativity:
1. Internet… probably it was nowhere on M$'s horizon, public quoting against the concept of Internet is well known.
2. GUI… Apple had it first. M$ started using it in Windows
3. Spreadsheet… well known and broadly used product was Lotus 123 before M$ had Excel
4. Document Editor… WordStar, WordPerfect and many more were broadly used before Word came.
5. Browser… NetScape was the first popular browser, M$ almost did whatever they could do so people use their browser… end result, Internet Explorer.
6. Internet Programming… PHP, PERL, Java, Java Server Pages (JSP)… well M$ need to respond to market so in rush they had ASP/COM
7. Internet/Distributed Programming… CORBA… M$ came back with proprietory, buggy, troublesome COM/DCOM
8. Internet/Distributed Programming… JAVA… itself a big story, M$ initially tried to hijack whole JAVA, years after they found a work-around to fool ECMA and they had .Net, which IMHO, a nothing but part of their hidden agenda to hijack whole computing platform… probably the worst mistake of the century.
9. Gaming Platform… Nintendo, PlayStation were pioneer… well m$ wanted its share… XBox
10. Message Queing… MQSeries (and probably others)… its about business, M$ responds back with M$MQ
11. Dashbiard/Groupware… Lotus Domino… Outlook/M$ Exchange
12. OpenSource… I believe programmers on M$ platform especially those work with .Net, are M$ Guinea pigs… this one requires a separate discussion
13. Interactive Content… Macromedia Flash… how can M$ be left behind especially when they want to hi-jack whole internet initiative, late but now they have Silverlight… probably soon they will find a way to compel so that people "NEED" to use Silverlight (M$ always finds a way to find free Guinee Pigs… and its surprises me however M$ developer community is the first victim… again a big one, may need separate discussion
14. SmartPhones… BlackBerry (ok, ok… not phone itself, however mobile e-mail, calendaring etc.), you can get M$ Pocket PC
15. Messanger… ICQ… I cannot tolerate this, use my M$ Messanger
16. Media Players… oh another big one, and controversial… there were "Real Player" and many others… after all this is a big industry, why M$ cannot dominate it… let people force to use Media Player (Shame ECMA, Shame I had high regards for you, you were (probably) the only one who can defeat M$ in the world, however at the end you surrendered to M$.
17. OOXML… OpenDocument (I believe M$ is hiding lots of evil intentions to hijack whole programming world, by monopolizing information itself, again requires a separate post).
Above list can grow to almost any imaginable area of computing. I believe this list can grow over 50 well known products which helped M$ to seat on 40 Billion cash… so far creativity lied somewhere else.
Promote Open Document Format (ODF) and stop OOXML. This is the ONLY chance, we have to stop M$. If we loose this, every human being will pay (yes directly or indirectly) to M$, probably in the end more than taxes you pay. You asked how? Well, OOXML is the ONLY thing M$ need to virtualize whole computing platform so that they can make 40 billion cash to 40 trillion (reaaly?). In that case, there will be many ECMAs arround the world, almost all governments, all businesses, and ultimately every human being, has to give hardly earned money to M$.
I have decided, to never gave up. What do you want to do?
LiveFree.