Your parent's point is that the reason Microsoft doesn't do this as much now isn't because they are more benevolent, it's because they were so over the top tyrannical that they've been forced to stop.
I dunno. They've (more or less) embraced web standards, made overtures to the OSS community with a bunch of commits to the linux kernel, and have generally been a whole lot less monopolistic. Granted, Ballmer may want to be Gates and lack the ability, but the end result is a far less scary beast.
