Definition of "Microsoft"

After its phenomenal stock offering two weeks ago, Netscape Communications Corp. is well on its way to becoming the Microsoft of the Internet.

1995 August 21, Robert Metcalfe, “Microsoft and Netscape open some new fronts in escalating Web Wars”, in InfoWorld, volume 17, number 34, page 35

Similarly, said Fraley, farmers were going to demand Bt cotton or Roundup-resistant soybean plants no matter where they went shopping for seeds. Monsanto would be the Microsoft of agriculture.

2001, Daniel Charles, Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food, page 110

The company wanted to turn Celera into the Microsoft of the gene-hunting world, selling its version of the human genome to private or public gene hunters through a proprietary computer program.

2005, Merrill Goozner, The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of New Drugs, page 64

Shepherding is more or less gone (though there’s an interesting move back toward discipleship in today’s church especially among those influenced by Rick Warren’s blockbuster book The Purpose-Driven Life), but Integrity remains as sort of the Microsoft of worship music.

2006, Andrew Beaujon, Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock, page 232

You could call it the Microsofting of the wine industry. Of course, wine is unlikely to be dominated by one producer or one distributor.

2003, Wine Enthusiast, volume 16, numbers 2-8, page 122