Criticism of Microsoft has followed various aspects of its products and business practices. Issues with ease of use , robustness , and security of the company's software are common targets for critics. In the s, a number of malware mishaps targeted security flaws in Windows and other products. Microsoft was also accused of locking vendors and consumers in to their products, and of not following or complying with existing standards in its software.
The company has been the subject of numerous lawsuits , brought by several governments and by other companies, for unlawful monopolistic practices. Commission case, and it received an million euro fine. On September 14, , Microsoft's flagship store was shut down by protestors as part of a direct action organized by Close the Camps NYC. From its inception, Microsoft defined itself as a platform company and understood the importance of attracting third-party programmers.
It did so by providing development tools, training, access to proprietary APIs in early versions, and partner programs. Although the resulting ubiquity of Microsoft software allows a user to benefit from network effects , critics and even Microsoft itself decry what they consider to be an " embrace, extend and extinguish " strategy of adding proprietary features to open standards or their software implementations, thereby using its market dominance to gain unofficial ownership of standards "extended" in this way.
Microsoft software is also presented as a "safe" choice for IT managers purchasing software systems. The Windows API is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most independent software vendors would be crazy not to use it. And it 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 the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO total cost of ownership , our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties [ In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago.
Concerns were raised that this requirement would hinder the use of alternate operating systems such as Linux. In a post discussing secure boot on the Building Windows 8 blog, Microsoft developer Tony Mangefeste indicated that vendors would provide means to customize secure boot, stating that "At the end of the day, the customer is in control of their PC. Microsoft's philosophy is to provide customers with the best experience first, and allow them to make decisions themselves.
