>I am not sure what the truth is at this point. I don't beleive everything I read.

me either,

But if the problem was that registering of domain names that start with microsoft.com then apple wouldn't work as well
Also that domain names still exists
And if you have a domain name like linux.com and you wish to have a subdomain microsoft.com.is.not.as.good.as.linux.com, i don't know if microsoft can do anything about that.
Also the domain names are read from right to left, so it searches first for linux.com and then for the rest. The other adresses should be in the same ip range.