If your pockets are deep enough, any technology can be replicated

Memoirs From the Browser Wars gives a nice insight to the reality that is innovative technology development. In the end, the big pockets have most of the clout provided they identify the threat before it is too late and before it is protected by intellectual property rights. The 'throw money at it philosophy' works when you have a huge install base and can give stuff away for free. I saw it first hand with the demise of X.400 in the main stream after MS consumed the emerging X.400 market by bundling a (buggy) X.400 capability with Exchange.

I hated fixing our browser to make it bug-compatible with Netscape even though we had already coded it to 'the standard'. Life's not fair sometimes. :-)

I know what you mean!.