Joe,
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>>In terms of the Desktop Operating System, I agree. However, I would not agree that they have one in terms of Desktop applications or network OS.
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>I pretty much agree. Office isn't really a monopoly (you could start with something else if starting from ground-zero and if you have no inter-operability issues), but it's proprietary document nature is annoying. I have always been more annoyed with MS because of their proprietary nature than their monopoly(s).

As I said elsewheres in this thread, here at Shaw, we use Lotus. Having personal experience with both products, I like Office better. I never could figure out why the Lotus word processor (Ami Pro now Word Pro) when it went to release 5 suddenly decided that the conventional Windows keystrokes weren't good enough for it, and implemented its own set. Further, you couldn't write an RTF file that could be turned into an HLP file, because it didn't support the foot note conventions that were required. So I had to have Word. Then Smart Suite 97 comes out and drops DDE support, which immediately broke an FPW app that I had that imported data (tens of thousands of records stored in cross tables). Further, they completely changed the macro language, with no way other than simultaneously having two versions (Release 5 and 97) of the same application, to use the old macros. IOW, no backward compatibilty. Office looks pretty good by contrast.

As to the proprietary document format, it seems to me that MS isn't alone. Using Smart Suite as an example, I can't read its files in Office and they can't read Office.

As a side note on the Smart Suite deal, back when Shaw was a publicly traded company (we're now owned by Berkshire-Hathaway), it was known in the financial community that we used Lotus. I remember reading somewhere on a financial discussion board that being a mark against us as a company (in terms of investment in the stock). Never mind that we were (and are) the largest and most profitable manufacturer of carpet in the world. We used Lotus. That didn't seem to bother Warren Buffet, however.:-)