Microsoft's entire empire was built on platform lock-in and network effects -- from business to business, to customers, and to the homes of their employees. It was a staggeringly successful strategy that everyone copied, Apple being the most prominant exception. They've always made products to please the consumer who bought it and nobody else. Cherry pick counter-examples all you like, but this is pretty much how it was.
Really? I don't think that Apple has acted with such altruistic intentions. Certainly they're not just pumping out whatever they can to get more cash, but they're obviously working to make a profit.
If their number one priority was really to please the end-user, they'd be selling everything at cost, open-sourcing and giving away OS X for free, etc. People are generally greatly pleased when they can get cool stuff for cheap or free.
Apple wants to please their customers so much that Apple is deciding what apps their customers are allowed to use, because their customers are too stupid to correctly choose the application that works best for his/her needs. And if you attempt to circumvent this restriction, Apple will do everything in its power, technically and legally, to stop you from doing so.
Did Microsoft ever endeavor to do this? Personally, I find top-down control of the entire distribution channel more of a "platform lock-in" thing than encouraging the use of proprietary IE extensions.
It seems to me that Apple develops more to please Apple than to please end-users. The worship that Apple gets is so very silly, in my opinion.
It has nothing to do with altruism, it's about selling directly to the person using the product vs selling to someone who forces other people to use the product. Even if the seller is acting primarily out of self interest, users are going to end up much happier buying something because they like it, and not because forces out of their control have conspired to make it their only viable option.
Apple wouldn't be in existence without the billions it made volume selling to schools. From grammar school to graduate school I was forced to use an Apple/Mac.
Your comment, while mostly fiction IMO, does have a nice storyline.
Why do you keep insisting that people are "forced" to buy these things? Nobody has been forced to buy Microsoft. If your job required a Microsoft product, and you didn't want to buy Microsoft products, you could find a new job. You were not forced to buy from Microsoft any more than anyone has been "forced" to buy from Apple.
I've known plenty of people whose jobs didn't even require the use of a computer; if you are so picky about the software you use, perhaps you could consider a line of work that doesn't involve much computer usage.
You don't have to use Microsoft if you don't want to either -- just don't work somewhere that requires MS products. Do you suppose that there aren't companies where using Apple products is required? There are.
I'm just saying but who knows if in x years you also have to use Apple? You know, there was always an alternative for Microsoft products like there is for Apple ones but people actually vote on this with their wallet: if the vast majority chooses Apple you will be forced to use their products too. I'm sure of this because I would never think about working with Objective-C and here I am doing iOS apps because that's where money is.
You don't have to use any Apple device if you don't want to. That choice is yours.
I spent many years working in places where you had to use Microsoft products. There was no choice.
Microsoft didn't care what you put on your machine because all they care about is making money selling you stuff.