It might be, but it isn't the first time they use patents to threaten competition. I guess they just found someone who didn't give in to the threat of fighting Microsofts vast lawyer army. Here's an example of what Microsoft has actually done (or tried to do) to its competition with patents: http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/

At my company we've been developing software for solaris for over 10 years. We develop and do some testing on solaris workstations, without having root privileges. This has been working fine for a long time. If you need some new software installed, it is still possible to do it without being root and if you need something installed for everyone, it is better to ask the admins to install it, because they will also maintain it for you.

Lately we've be using Windows as well. Every Windows developer machine comes with local admin rights, because it would be too difficult to get anything done without it.