Telling Microsoft that we can't improve Windows is telling us we can't compete. Since its inception more than 20 year ago, the PC industry has grown incredibly rapidly and provided real benefits for customers without the government regulating product designs. Creativity and entrepreneurship are flourishing as hundreds of new software companies and thousands of new products come to market each year. Microsoft Windows has played an important role in this innovation, largely because it serves as an open, integrated platform for software developers, hardware vendors and solution providers. This gives them the incentive and the certainty they need to build products for Windows, which attracts more customers and, in turn, encourages greater demand, more innovation and new products.
Consumers are the big winners.
Prices for software are constantly falling, thanks in part to the stable development platform Windows provides. In the late 1980s, business applications such as word processors or spreadsheets typically cost several hundred dollars each. Now, you can buy a full suite of far better applications for about the same price. And although Windows is by far the most popular operating system on the market today, the price has remained virtually the same for years, while its performance has leapt forward. Unlike other operating systems, Windows will always be an open platform available at a reasonable price, because that's the key to attracting new software development and giving customers the kind of low-cost, innovative PCs they want and have come to expect.