Every time my customers called tech support for some software package, support would actually ridicule them for using non-Microsoft products, and refuse support until this was corrected.
...
I have no sympathy whatever for users who are now caught in Microsoft's extortion racket.

this was the user's 'fault'? They should have been willing to do without technical support?
When their "expert" came in, the first thing he'd do is rip off StarOffice and put that magic silver CD with the hand written titles in the drive, because "everybody's using Office, we can't be different".

Heh. And now, the BSA comes in, and - shows them just how wrong they were.
No, blaming the OEMs is just an attempt to shift the blame from where it belongs. Many OEMs tried alternatives, both operating systems and applications software bundles.

OK. Point taken. Blame should go toward anyone that refused to support alternatives because it was easier to just accept MS development shenanigans. Do you really think it reasonable to blame those who needed support, and then were denied it because they weren't exclusively Microsoft? Routinely? Is thier reaction to that unreasonable?

Now comes payback, though.

MS abused the market so badly that the only way to be free of thier control was to escape the marketplace entirely. To transform Microsoft itself into a 'legacy'. And now those that wouldn't support alternatives have got to adapt or die (well, in the long run).