> I don't think it is at all a good idea to have any corporation in charge of designing a programming language, standard library, and user interface bindings for a particular OS, when their primary moneymaker is the OS itself.
the OS isn't their primary moneymaker:
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY07/earn_rel_q4_07.mspx
> Client offerings consist of premium edition and standard Windows operating systems. Premium offerings are those that include additional functionality and are sold at a price above our standard versions. Premium offerings include Windows XP Professional, XP Media Center Edition, XP Tablet PC Edition, Vista Business, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Ultimate.
Revenue $3,808 $3,347 14% $14,972 $13,089 14%
> MBD offerings consist of the Microsoft Office system and Microsoft Dynamics business solutions.
Revenue $4,633 $3,905 19% $16,396 $14,486 13%
also, apple (os x, objective c) and bell labs (unix and plan 9, c) did the same thing.