Microsoft got lucky, once, by being in the right place at the right time (And having the right connections).
I'm not saying I agree with the OP or not, but any microsoft bashing that goes on is more than warranted. They have crushed businesses, held back innovation, wasted millions of hours of peoples lives trying to make IE not completely suck, etc
They do not innovate to improve users experience, they act to defend their monopoly. Look at the mozilla vs IE story. Once IE was dominant, they shelved development of it for years - it had served its purpose, which was to crush mozilla and hold back innovation of the web as a platform.