Sure, but there's an important difference between "giving away one product to sell others" and "using a monopoly position in one market to eliminate competition in another", namely, that the latter is illegal but the former is not. Grey areas? Sure, lots, whence so may lawyers. But IE and IIS were clearly (to regulators, not me) not mere loss-leaders, but prongs of a coordinated response to a perceived threat to Microsoft's PC hegemony.
Besides, Android device manufacturers effectively "pay" Google for Android in search traffic (or reduced revenue share from search traffic).
From what I've read on some blogs they never give numbers showing their profit or loss from Android, and looking at the situation from the outside I'd think it's more likely they're losing money on it at the moment.
>Sure, but there's an important difference between "giving away one product to sell others" and "using a monopoly position in one market to eliminate competition in another"
.... you mean like using a near monopoly in search to finance paying manufacturers to use Android?
Besides, Android device manufacturers effectively "pay" Google for Android in search traffic (or reduced revenue share from search traffic).