Fine. ActiveX was an example =P
Works for me.
BTW I think they can finally dump it in April, 2014, when XP long-term support ends. We’ll all have champagne then.
A less conspiratorial angle:
Microsoft, Google and Apple all depend on web browsers for their business (albeit for different reasons). They don’t want to rely on a product provided by a third party for that critical function. And they’re big enough to build their own browsers. So they do.