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By coincidence, Jeffrey Zeldman just posted something in a similar vein to my previous rant, looking at things from a different angle:

By its recent actions, Microsoft seems to believe that if consumers want the Internet, they will use the next version of Widows to access Microsoft-based web services and MSN content, and to download XBox patches. And some consumers will do just that. But consumers have a choice.

By its recent actions, Microsoft has also made dupes of its employees who contributed to web standards. In light of recent news, it appears the company tolerated these employees' activities because they pacified the developer community.

Yet regardless of Microsoft's intentions, those standards did make it into all recent browsers and the availability of browsers that commonly support CSS1, XHTML, some of CSS2, and the DOM is changing the way designers and developers create websites. And that will not stop. So long as we design with standards, we and the end-users on whose behalf we toil will continue to have a choice.