[melling]

No, I hate Microsoft because they destroyed Borland, Lotus, WordPerfect, etc. They gobbled up everything (Visio, PowerPoint, etc). They killed off Netscape the company, stuck us with IE6 for a decade by "making it part of the operating system." They embraced, extended, and tried to extinguish everything they could. (e.g. Java->C#, OpenGL->DirectX).

Bill, however, I greatly admire. He took no prisoners. :-) I've got his book on my shelf somewhere. It's 20 years old now. I should go back and read it.

[bdcravens]

Apple has arguably destroyed/killed off RIM. Microsoft's "destruction" is today's startups' "disruption". (At least in HN circles I think we applaud AirBNB or Uber doing damage to the hospitality or transportation industries). Twitter and Google are gobbling up and often times killing products of value.

I think Microsoft did a lot of things we value: disrupt and grow. Looking back, I think we see it through a different lens, but modern startups (or those who have eclipsed that label to be "big") can be Microsoft (or at least little Microsofts). Probably the only thing separating Microsoft from many companies is the presence of a moral compass at the company level.

[jimmaswell]

What's wrong with how they handle c#? I prefer it to Java and it's often considered superior.

[recoiledsnake]

Most of the companies you list failed to keep up with the changing marketplace and withered off by being complacent, while Microsoft doggedly kept improving their initially poor offerings(remember the adage, the 3rd version of a Microsoft product is when it gets real).

IE5 was actually better than Netscape at the time which got bogged down in a rewrite. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

With more nimble competitors like Intuit with Quicken, Microsoft didn't make too much headway with Money. Same with Adobe.

To see an example of this playing out now, look at the Xbox versus Playstation. Sony(and Nintentdo) has been scoring a lot of self goals lately.