It will never happen guys. I'm afraid youve forgotten about the fact that in most countries monopolies are illegal.
First, they would be in more monopoly lawsuits then all of their asses could hold. I mean think about it, Software companies like Netscape for example would be afraid that M$ would not allow them to install their browser instead of IE or Corel instead of Office and that would cause controversy and Microsoft would surely lose... again.
Second, how many motherboard companies would go along with this? You think they are going to say.. "Sure we will install this chip to allow you to control everbodys lives on our motherboards." I mean come on. People wont buy them and the motherboard companies know this.
Third, while people are putting up with some of M$'s shit, they wont go that far. M$ would lose too much of their precious green to do this. I mean, no programmers are going to want to pay M$ to give away their software. Like I said, this will not happen and if it does M$ will lose an extreme amount of money cause nobody will go for it.
So you see, if Microsoft is interested in losing their money then they can try this but it will most likely get shot down. M$ loves to scare people by announcing their ridiculously controlling plans and they never come through with them.
