Neither MAC or Linux can provide really easy application development like Microsoft can for Windows.

Windows will continue to dominate because it simply provides more.

Actually, de-coupling applications like Photo Gallery and Movie Maker does allow them to be updated with new features and improvements more frequently, outside of the general Windows release. This is a better strategy overall for these types of applications, as bundling the applications with the operating system would require that the feature sets and user interfaces stay the same for support reasons.

For example, instead of having 3 mail applications (Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, and Microsoft Outlook), Microsoft can focus their efforts on one consumer product and one business/professional product (Live Mail/Outlook). The strategy just simplifies things overall.

While I’m sure the anti-trust aspect may have played some form of role in Microsoft’s decision as well, I doubt that it was their primary concern.

“This enables us to innovate on them rapidly and keep them fresh for the users who love them.”

I understand that based on what you wrote it seems they have not met that goal so far.

Thanks again for taking the time to comment.