Microsoft has never made much secret of the fact that keeping rival browsers down is a key part of its business plan.
Way back in 1996, Steve Ballmer (then still only the deputy CEO) cheerfully proclaimed: "Every minute of every day, we"ll ask every Microsoft employee to ask themselves, "Have I done anything to increase our share of the Internet browser market?" That"s the business we"re in; driving up our share is incredibly, incredibly important to us."
When it suits, of course, Microsoft likes to look like it"s playing nice. Hence the jaunty tone of a recent post on the official Windows Vista blog, announcing that users of Firefox -- the biggest threat to Microsoft"s browser share since, well, a decade ago -- are now going to be fully allowed into the Windows Media world.