You, me, the OEMs, the government, even the King of the PATATO-People. We all made Microsoft rich.

DOS did not have networking built in, you needed WFW or Windows 95 for that. Before that you had to use Novell Netware, Banyan Vines, LANTastic or some other DOS based driver (Client Access/400 for DOS, etc) to network, and then later came the Windows network drivers. Then with networking built into WFW and Windows 95, who needed the other guys? Just switch to an NT server and plug in the "Client for Microsoft Network" drivers. Then switch to SQL Server, Exchange Server, SNA Server, IIS, etc. Until everything is supported by the same software company. It was easier to just order from MS, than buy from several different vendors, just ask the Pointy Haired Bosses that now run IT shops that use mostly MS technology. If they had to, they would only give support money to one vendor. Since the same OS that came bundled with the workstations and servers was also made by the same guys who made the other stuff, it wasn't hard for the PHBs to standardize on MS technologies.

Oh, by the way, don't forget to blame Microsoft for making it easy for the PHBs to choose Microsoft products over others by the simple fact that most of the MS stuff is bundled with new hardware systems.

Sure Linux, SAMBA, MySQL, and other software applications could do the job better, but the PHB wants something they can futz with themselves without editing techie-speak text files. If they cannot get MS, the PHBs may eyeball OSX next? ;)

Anyway we are all to blame for making Microsoft number one. But what can we do to suggest alternatives?