>>>>t they do have the power to force people to buy and learn new tools and pay for massive rewrites at their discretion. That's way too much power
>>
>>That's just incorrect.
>>The market, not the manufacturer, makes things obsolete.
>>I reluctantly stopped writing Foxpro for DOS and Unix because my customers wanted to use Windows.
>>You're vilifying MS for making things that most people wanted to use.
>
>There was a time when customers were surprised and excited after seeing Foxpro apps on Unix. I remember the day. I wrote some defense apps for Unix using it. It was the fastest and prettiest (amazing how that matters) app they had seen.

I was told by someone who should know that they sold 1100 copies of it. Apparently Fox Software had promised a Unix version to a large customer, which Microsoft honored.