[InclinedPlane]

Sorry, I don't buy it.

No PC OEM has a rational fear of MS doing bad by them, regardless of lock-in. Firstly, MS has no good reason to do that since it would just put the retail price of the PCs too high to sell well, and MS is a volume business and knows it. They're smart enough to know to avoid hurting their own sales. They already know who and how to charge ridiculously high prices per client for software and its not OEMs or retail consumers. Secondly, the OEMs so affected would likely run to the FTC immediately and file complaints of unfair trade practices, and then MS would find itself in a fecal-tornado of bad press and government action that it would surely not enjoy. Thirdly, OEM licenses can only go so high, as then OEMs could just buy and install retail copies of Windows on their machines. In short, this whole fantastical scenario goes against everything that MS has done as a business and everything that MS has done as part of creating and maintaining relationships with OEMs over the past 3 decades, it makes no sense.

As far as the server market, those machines are almost invariably different hardware than commodity PCs. I don't think it's likely that PC component makers or OEMs will opt for Windows-only systems, but I don't think you've put forward a sufficient argument on why that should be the case.

[beagle3]

> No PC OEM has a rational fear of MS doing bad by them, regardless of lock-in. Firstly, MS has no good reason to do that since it would just put the retail price of the PCs too high to sell well, and MS is a volume business and knows it.

Microsoft already prices it differently for different OEMs. They are already in mortal fear than Microsoft will change it, even without the technology to enforce it.

Can't find a link now, but in one of the big computer trade shows, in the morning Asus said they'll be promoting linux on the recent 9" eee. Afternoon, they apologized and said they will only promote Windows, and will in fact redesign it to better fit windows. The difference was apparently made by a call from Microsoft that threatened their volume licensing deal.

> MS would find itself in a fecal-tornado of bad press and government action that it would surely not enjoy.

The government works for Microsoft. MS had some fear of antitrust back in the late 90s, but they've since become one of the largest lobbyists, buying politicians on both sides. They are not touchable by antitrust or any other government action in the foreseeable future.