..that almost every PC comes with Windows pre-installed in conjuction with Microsoft abusing this monopoly despite all the anti-trust affairs.

I know the M$ fanboys will point at Apple and their iOS devices, but the big difference is that Apple does not force other smartphone manufacturers to put iOS on their hardware, whereas PC manufacturers have to pay for not putting Windows on their PCs.

Given those circumstances, the fact that I'd have to pay $99 in order to install my own private Linux distro on my own private PC is just crazy.

Regardless whether this is a false alarm or not, I'm 100% sure that US military technology has something similar, too. I can't imagine them selling fighter planes to Saudi Arabia and not putting in a kill switch.

Without AMD you clueless retard would have to pay 5 times the price for an Intel CPU. You should thank them for providing competition instead of dissing their products.

There is a big difference between Apple's and Microsofts behaviour: Microsoft are (ab)using the billions of monopoly dollars they rake in from Windows and Office to become dominant in other markets, too. See for example selling Xboxes below production costs just to drive competitors out of the market in order to rule over the home TV set. Similarly, they will use their power and billions of dollars that they made from their two monopolies and try to drive Apple out of the tablet market. Whereas Apple does not use their billions they made from their iPad monopoly to get Microsoft out of the PC market, right? That's the big difference. Apple just defends their own market, whereas Microsoft wants to rule the world.

Game clichès that need to die that are not mentioned in the article:

- The US are the good. The <insert other nation here> are the evil.

As you might have guessed from the link to the original article in german, english is not my native language. Whereas submitters of pieces that are already written in english can just copy/paste the relevant parts into their /. submission, non-english sources have to be translated by the submitter. It's anyone's choice to wait until an english-speaking site picks up the story written in perfect english, or read the "malformed junk" version while it is still fresh...

Dunno what happened to the link, this is the link I've submitted.

She's the mother of all robots. Too bad she's been omitted from the list.

..plus, by the time Intel expects Ultrabooks with Thunderbolt to hit the market, Ultrabooks will be dead already. Who wants to buy an Macbook Air clone for the same price but with all those silly stickers on it and the illuminated Apple logo missing?

Man too bad I haven't kept a mod point for you.

Criticism of Microsoft might be mainly because of the whole anti-trust issue: forcing PC makers to ship new PCs with Windows exclusively is criminal. Even more so is the fact that they still can do that. Helloooo corporate America!

But it all started with Microsoft trying to put DRDOS out of business, I guess.

Then we have _NSAKEYS in Windows, WGA and Media Player phoning home, Windows genuine "advantage" (hahaha) bullying ad nauseum, Ballmer throwing chairs at everyone and their dog, oh and maybe Microsoft copying other's ideas? As Linus noted in his book "Just for fun", a monopolist is increasingly busy administering his monopoly, and not innovating. This works up to the point when a niche grows sufficiently big to host competition. In a few years,Microsoft and Windows will be what the Roman Empire is since 1500 years: history.

Ballmer will surely throw a chair at them.

As much as I love Apple products, I hate their arrogance towards anything related to security. Could break their neck.

Microsoft shoved a lot of money up their asses in order to get a foothold in a market where they don't yet dominate.