SNIP
>Lets all pretend that Microsoft Office on Apple is only something people have collectively dreamt about!
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>2 points. 1. MS has an investment in Apple - so there is more than a passing interest on MS's part to see Apple succeed. 2 - as long as Apple and other companies are around - it is hard for others to argue that competition and choice does not exist.
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SNIP

You should know that this "argument" (an investment so more than a passing interest) is WEAK, like you are scraping wherever you can.

MS' "investment" in Apple is small and really means NOTHING MONETARILY to Microsoft. To you and me it's tons of cash, but to MS it's nothing more than chump-change.

It's in MS' interest to keep 'competitors' around, if only to give the anti-trusters extra things to think about.

And since I've now committed the sin of jumping in on this, I might as well add that your "Windows subsidizes..." theory is all wet for another reason than the ones already clearly enunciated so far.
MS charges precious little for Windows compared to virtually all of their other products. Sure, to us it looks like a lot in a retail box, but it is tiny in the cost of a new PC (where MS has an 'arrangement' that Windows MUST be installed).

The whole Windows/Linux thing reminds me a lot of the IBM/AMDAHL melee in the mainframe area many years ago.
Amdahl made a mainframe that competed DIRECTLY with IBM's /370 line (the BIG boys) and Amdahls was not only cheaper but it didn't require water cooling (a big install expense) and it had models faster than IBM's fastest and they offered support at levels of IBM's pre-judgement days.
IBM used every tactic in the book to keep Amdahl processors out of shops! And I mean every tactic. MS is really acting similarly today vis-a-vis Linux.

Finally, as I've said every time I've responded to you about this topic... your views are WELL KNOWN on the issue. Why is it that you continually have to resurrect it? Do you think we're all so thick that it will take constant hammering to finally make believers of us all? If that's the case I can tell you now that no amount of hammering BY YOU is gonna change my mind. You've tried every argument in the book and none holds up to even modest scrutiny.

Jim