Paragraph of the day!
Complementers, however, always run the risk that Microsoft will incorporate the unctions contained in their software into its own products, either by internal development or by acquiring the technology in a takeover. Merger talks between Novell and Microsoft in 1990 fell through. Microsoft subsequently introduced networking capabilities into its operating systems in the early 990s, thereby entering into intense competition with Novell. On the other hand, in the case of Norton Utilities, Microsoft has shown the tolerance of an elephant for the tikka bird on its back, allowing Peter Norton Computing "deep into the innards of the operating system" and fostering "tremendous personal relationships between their development teams." This is probably because Norton Utilities complement Microsoft's operation g systems, adding to their value--by providing anti-virus facilities, for example--in a way that Microsoft's relatively bureaucratic development processes would find difficult or uneconomical.
--Martin Campbell-Kelly,
From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry (pg 260).
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