This may seem like a dumb question, but think about it. You've probably read lots of Microsoft hatemail, on UseNet, CompuServe, or many other places. Very little of this hatemail accepts that MS may have any redeming quality. Is it possible that a company the size of Microsoft can have nothing to redeme it? Is MS truely "the evil empire"?
Before we examine the evidence (big chuckle), let's consider the possibility that these claims are justified, and what that might mean. It's in Microsoft's interests to continue selling their products. Somehow they can, I guess, do this in spite of producing crap software. Why do people buy it if it's so bad? Perhaps they don't realise that they have a choice. After all, marketing is (allegedly) just a way of brainwashing people into buying things.
Harry S Truman said, "I never give them hell. I just tell the truth, and they think it is hell." Now there's a radical idea! Could that be relevant here? Hmm.
Now let's consider the possibility that the hatemail is wrong, or at least a little over the top. It's in Microsoft's interests to continue selling their products. Microsoft Research exist to develop new ideas and technologies, just as like Xerox PARC. The difference is that Xerox failed to exploit those ideas, leaving a technolog gap for MS, Apple, and others to exploit. This is what they've done. Of course, Apple aren't as successful as MS, and they had all that clever marketing to convince people that Apple were the good guys, and IBM were the bad guys, "the evil empire". Today, MS have taken the place of IBM, so they're "the new evil empire"