Well, that's the essence of capitalism. I'm out to sell stuff to benefit myself, not you. However, in order to sell it to you, I need to take your needs into account. If someone else handles your needs better, I go out of business.
It is often said that open source is about scratching an itch. Open source programmers, by and large, program things that interest them, or program according to their own needs. Rarely will you see any open source project go out and interview end users, run usability experiments, etc. In fact, end users are told to RTFM and are considered IDIOTS if they can't use your elite hacker user interface. or worse, they are told to patch the source according to their needs. Frequently, any criticism of a Linux app begins with "well, if it is missing a feature or you find it hard to use, then you can patch it yourself or contribute docs". Try telling that to your grandma who just wants to check her email, not edit /etc/resolv.conf
Microsoft is bashed so much and people complain so much about their software, but in most of the important categories of software that people use everyday, they have the best product. Microsoft is only going to stay on top if they keep delivering a better product. In areas where they don't deliver the best product: desktop publishing, video, and imaging (Adobe dominates) or financial apps (Intuit), or Databases, Microsoft hasn't been able to crack the market to any large degree. Look at DirectX. Microsoft is moving so quickly, that if OpenGL doesn't get moving, they are history. Visual Studio.NET? There is no better Win32 IDE period. Not CodeWarrior, not C++ builder, not Delphi. They don't even come close.
Overall, IMHO, Microsoft has been good for the industry. Yes, they drove alot of commodity products out of the industry (Stac compression, fax software, TCP/IP stacks, media players, etc) but I consider these things to be low level components that should be provided by the OS, just as I have a printer driver. Why should MS, for example, be banned from providing a filesystem with built in compression? Just so end users have to pay $50 to a small company and go thru the hassle of installing and configuring something which shouldn't even be an enduser product?
Many of the same people who whine amount Microsoft including a DVD Player in XP (puts WinDVD/PowerDVD out of business) didn't say a word when Apple included a DVD player built into the operating system. Again, why should I have to BUY a media player for my computer that came with a DVDROM. Every component needed is a commodity. The look and feel of the UI is just a skin. There is really no need for a third party market in CD/DVD player applets.
My advice: if you are in an industry which can be commodified very quickly, don't bet your company's future on it. If Microsoft doesn't commodify you, the open source programmers will. (e.g. Apache)
