An ecosystem for microsoft

I think you need to ask what it means for consumers to have freedom. There are necessary freedoms - the ability to choose from a series of applications, the ability to choose where and when you get your computer out and use it - and then there are frivolous or unnecessary freedoms - the ability to hack the registry, the ability to download illegally pirated material etc, the ability to put a port of another OS onto your hardware. Most of these latter so-called "freedoms" are the domain of people like you and me, who have the skill to perform these changes. We would buy a product that allows us to do this if we are hell-bent on doing so, although you'd have to question the necessity to have this capability - I think a lot of people do this just because they can, rather than because they have to. The vast majority of consumers - people who don't read tech sites in detail - want a product that works, that gives them ecosystem components they can understand and value, and that sews all of this up in a cohesive package that can pervade their lives. These ecosystems within themselves provide competition within the important things - there will be a dozen apps that do the same thing in the app store, so pick the one you like, for example. There is also competition around which ecosystem a consumer should adopt. Once ecosystem is pitted against ecosystem, they then need to innovate and compete with each other on what makes an ecosystem great, rather than just what makes the OS, or the hardware, great. Microsoft can see that having an ecosystem is what makes Apple the largest company on Earth. But it isn't just ecosystem. Apple have made friends with their customers, by having exclusive retail and advertising environments that avoid mixing their products up with those of others, and that clearly communicate the benefits, as opposed to just the implementation: e.g. a tablet isn't just 9mm thin machined aluminium and glass; it's thin and light so you can carry it with you and hold it in your hand. I'm impressed that this part of Microsoft is moving with the times. No one is saying that ecosystem is the way of the future forever, but in this wave of computing ecosystem is king, and to compete that's where you need to be. Microsoft are going there, and if it's at the expense of a few broken noses in Taiwan, I'm not sure they really care.