[ghaff]

The whole Windows/IE bundling fracas has to be looked at in the context of Microsoft not only having a lot of unsavory business practices--as did it's welded together at the hip partner Intel--but also it was seen in the eyes of a lot of people as on the way to utterly dominate computing once Unix got pushed out of the way.

Add in the dominance of Office and Microsoft's presumed dominance of mobile once that became ubiquitous and a lot of people were looking for any lever to use against the company. All this activity probably made Microsoft back off a bit in some areas and likely tarnished its aura of inevitability a bit--but it's not entirely clear that it made much difference in the end. (And there were certainly people at the time arguing that the Microsoft winning over all narrative was deeply flawed.