I've heard of this. It's assinine.
Sure it may be ideal for businesses, but I thought businesses trying to sell a product were supposed to cater to the customers needs and not the other way around? Now we have big corporations (the original of 1999: Compaq, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft) come together for this crap. Maybe a new term will emerge: Customer Conditioning?
Basically saying "This is what you do. This is how you will buy our product. If you refuse to, you will be shut out. If you work around, you will be punished."
And their defense: "Oh, well standardizing the platforms will aid us in development and better service to the customer!" Bulldinky, they want control. It's not like they're near bankruptcy (Micro$oft in particular) and they use this scheme (with a government law in the works!) to secure their dominance and control over the market.
Think the little guy has it bad competing now? This will eliminate the little guy altogether. Just a new form of monopoly in disguise.