Quote:The Windows API is … so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead. … It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO, our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties… Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope wee just improve Windows rather than force them to move. In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, wee would have been dead a long time ago.

EC Decision, supra note 52, ¶ 463 (citing an internal Microsoft memo drafted for Bill Gates by C++ General Manger Aaron Contorer and dated Feb. 21, 1997).