Better because of dirty tricks
Many Microsoft applications were clearly best of breed. Yes, nasty, underhanded tricks were used to make those products dominant. But many Microsoft products from Excel to Internet Explorer really were superior to their direct competition at the time. Particularly when measured by the criteria that Microsoft was trying to win by - ease of development for third parties and ease of use.
It should also be kept in mind that Microsoft applications where better in part exactly becasue of underhanded tricks. Remember that the Microsoft anti-trust suits had as much to do with undocumented APIs as anything.
When Excel first came out it was the fastest Windows spreadsheet because it used undocumented memory APIs to give it better memory access. Word made us of file access APIs that nobody else knew about so it could load files faster and easier. In the late Win 3.1 and early Win95 eras there was a whole genre of programming books that did nothing but cover undocumented and secret APIs.
Microsoft abandoned that method only because the lawsuits made it too risky and better Windows programming tools made it too easy for outside developers to find the APIs.
Jay
