Actually I think you've got that completely backwards. Apple customers who pirate the new version probably would have bought it if there were no torrents -- hence apple is hurt. Someone who uses Mac OS on a generic box would probably have never bought a Mac -- but they increase Apple's mindshare and give them the reputation of having the best OS. If a huge clump of techies start using MacOS their non-techie friends will think a) Macs are cool and b) it's much easier to buy a Mac then to do all the crap needed to make MacOS run on a generic machine.
This will enable broke students to give Macs a try. Once they have jobs they may purchase Macs. Also a lot of the Windows centric mindset will break down.
There's only one small problem with this: Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly in email server software or in mobile device software. So there's no "monopoly" to leverage.
They do have an office suite monopoly (no one else can guarntee you'll be able to read the doc and xls files people send). They use the fact that Outlook is automatically installed combined with the Windows domain setup to leverage Exchange server. It's not quite a monopoly, but it's pretty damn common in offices. Much more so then it could ever be based on the quality of the software. Now they're planning to use Exhange Server to suffocate RIM. However they first announced this years ago to try to crib-kill RIM. I know of a few organisations that were holding out and waiting for the these -- but have since purchased Blackberries.
So to sum up, this isn't abuse of a Monopoly. However it is an anti-consumer business tactic.
I'm not sure about that. The big thing Blackberry's have going is that their design is much more rugged then any other company's. Sure Treo's are smaller and lighter -- but you have to carry it in a protective case 24/7. Unless the "European Carry All" catches on, there won't be much of a market for a $600 device that breaks easily.
The only thing I had to turn off with 2000 was the personalised menus - lordy, that still drives me up the wall when I use someone elses machine.
You forgot the most important thing -- uninstalling kodak image viewer. Never having to see that program again is really worth the bloat of XP. Microsoft must have signed some sort of 5 year contract to keep it as the default image viewer in Windows. That's the only reason I can imagine because you can make a better image viewer in under an hour.
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Actually I think you've got that completely backwards. Apple customers who pirate the new version probably would have bought it if there were no torrents -- hence apple is hurt. Someone who uses Mac OS on a generic box would probably have never bought a Mac -- but they increase Apple's mindshare and give them the reputation of having the best OS. If a huge clump of techies start using MacOS their non-techie friends will think a) Macs are cool and b) it's much easier to buy a Mac then to do all the crap needed to make MacOS run on a generic machine.
This will enable broke students to give Macs a try. Once they have jobs they may purchase Macs. Also a lot of the Windows centric mindset will break down.
So to sum up, this isn't abuse of a Monopoly. However it is an anti-consumer business tactic.