>>The only people in US history I can think of with that kind of record for repeated successful breakthrough innovations would be Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Edison.
Actually MS was a brilliant commoditizer and deliverer in its time. Things we take for granted like Truetype, plug and play... maybe not invented in the true sense by MS, but definitely exposed to the masses without a whole lot of malarkey which is what created the massive value uplift and made $ for both MS and its fans. More recently they began to focus on ways to lock in customers and proved the truth of Princess Leia's taunt:
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
