[jrmenon]

Nothing unusual about the lock-in strategy. I would argue Apple does the same with iTunes/App Store walled-garden, same for Facebook, and Google - their Android playstore, GMail/GDocs esp. for small business.

It is been a dream for many companies to own the full stack - client onwards all the way till the server. MS tried with Active-X controls in their browsers which only worked well with IIS servers. Apple is pretty much doing the same with their offerings.

Full-spectrum dominance.