I suspect you just hit the nail on the head there.
PR noise, anyone?

Thanks for your comments, I see where you’re coming from.

“A customer could select the browser of choice when they purchase their system, sort of like selecting a color or a CPU or a graphics card.” –

They could, but not everyone is actually interested in computers and computing, even those people that go into a shop to buy one. They don’t want to spend hours researching the internet to see which browser is best just because they have to go into the shop and choose from 4 different ones, in much the same way that the majority of high street shoppers won’t walk into a shop and ask for a specific graphics card in a laptop.

“Each system could have a program for selecting a browser of choice that would install the selected browser.” –
So you’re suggesting that Microsoft should pre-install Firefox, Opera, Flock, Chrome, Safari and any other browser out there on its OS so that the customer can choose? That would be pretty generous of them don’t you think? The question here is about whether the practice is anti-competitive, installing software you’ve developed on your own OS just doesn’t seem so to me. There ARE plenty of alternatives to get if you don’t like IE. Should Ubuntu be required to bundle IE? Should Apple? If when you downloaded Firefox, do you think that there should be an option to install Internet Explorer instead as part of the install process?

“Most computers are already sold with a ton of Crapware for trial, so several browsers could be preloaded by the manufacturer and the user could choose the one that fits his/her needs.” – You would prefer MORE crapware to take up space, annoy and confuse the average consumer?

In general your question is the equivalent of, “If I weren’t required to buy a overpriced, rusted out jalopy how would I get to a car dealer to purchase the vehicle I really want?”.

Taxi? Bus? Train? Lift? But seriously, there are lots of ways really… Sure you can buy a car without a car, just like you can research web browsers and decide which is best for you without ever touching IE, but in both cases, it does make it easier.

“how would I download Firefox on my new windows installation if I don’t have any browser at all?”

There are any number of ways. To name a few:

A customer could select the browser of choice when they purchase their system, sort of like selecting a color or a CPU or a graphics card.

Each system could have a program for selecting a browser of choice that would install the selected browser.

Most computers are already sold with a ton of Crapware for trial, so several browsers could be preloaded by the manufacturer and the user could choose the one that fits his/her needs.

In general your question is the equivalent of, “If I weren’t required to buy a overpriced, rusted out jalopy how would I get to a car dealer to purchase the vehicle I really want?”.