The way I see it, Zombie is right about some of these things and Macman/Calum on the other side make some good points too.
Apple may not be a monopoly like Zombie insisted but if it had the market share of M$ then it would be a far worse monopoly unless they allowed clones to exist. (which I think the only reason they wouldn't allow clones was due to the fact that they were doing terribly at the time and needed mo' money)
You may not be able to buy a computer without the Mac OS on it but Microsoft also does its best to pressure OEMS to not sell computers loaded with alternative operating systems such as Linux. At least there are many choices of where to buy your computer from, though, and you aren't forced to buy one assembled by Microsoft. (yecch!)
Microsoft may spread some lies and engaged in false advertising, but Apple is just as guilty of that. Their claims about the G4 being faster than the fastest pentiums on the market are clearly dubious and it is obvious to anyone who looks at it that their "benchmarks" are extremely biased.
Someone said Microsoft has a deal with Intel where M$ deliberately bloats up its operating systems so people will go out and buy new processors. Sorry, but I think the "bloat" in windows is not intentional, and Windows, Mac OS, and Linux are all guilty of being equally bloated. The only company I know of that isn't guilty of this is perhaps Amiga.
We hate Microsoft because it is a monopoly over software, and monopolies are generally very bad for competition. A monopoly is like a huge tree that grows and prevents the seeds below it from ever sprouting. We may never know how powerful our comptuers can really be since M$ methodically squashes or buys every competitor that walks its way.
