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The difference being of course MS is a monopoly, the companies you cite are not. One excludes competition the others do not. A better comparison with MS would be Standard Oil making OEM agreements with auto manufacturers to produce cars which only run on Standard's fuels. Of course as as monopolies go there is no comparision with MS.

How is Microsoft a monopoly? You can run any OS you want on a PC. Linux, Solaris for Intel, FreeBSD, NetBSD, BeOS, etc. You can run tens of thousands of non-MS applicaitons on their OS. Adobe, Lotus Notes, Eudora and on and on. No one has ever claimed MS has tried to force PC makers to build their computers to NOT RUN these other vendors products, which would be easily done should they have wanted to.

I do not see that MS is a monoply. FYI: I have competed with MS for almost 20 years at a variety of companies.

How is Microsoft a monopoly? You can run any OS you want on a PC. Linux, Solaris for Intel, FreeBSD, NetBSD, BeOS, etc.

Of course, you're right. But Sun, Oracle, and AOL are like whiny kids at Halloween. They simply won't go away until the gubmint dumps candy into their bag -- and if you won't, they'll trash your house...