If Bill Gates didn't spend a single penny more on advertising, Windows could retain its electronic dominance for years to come. For a variety of historical reasons, Windows became that way of working with others. Internet standards don't come from any single company, but are open for the use of any programmer. Internet standards allow an essay written on a Macintosh in Los Angeles to be read by a Windows 95 user in Johannesburg using a web browser written by a small company in Norway. This is what scared Bill Gates about the Internet, and caused Microsoft to compete so hard, using any means necessary to win.
Internet standards allow that.
In the end, far more than any state prosecutors or federal judges, this may be what closes the book on the Microsoft Age.