So you go to Al's and ask them to sell your meat. "No," they say.

Now let's try the version where you go to Al's and they say "Yes, but only if you agree not to sell to anyone else, ever."

That's when it gets ugly. Is MS there yet?

That's when it gets ugly. Is MS there yet?

I'm pretty sure the worst (ugliest?) side of MSFT to be on as a business right now is when you try to manufacture and sell windows based tablets. That must be a horrible business right now: a set of hugely successful and dominant competitors (apple and "android") where you barely can make a dent in it all and then your software supplier deciding to start to compete with you on the hardware you make and spending loads of money on advertising their hardware. Add to it that you probably have a contract with MSFT (for the laptop/desktop/servers OS and/or Office) prohibiting you from selling anything related to other OSes - so you can't even jump on the android wagon.

Aren't they a monopoly on phones and don't they lock out or restrict competitors on their products?

No. MS have a much higher proportion of the desktop market than Apple has of the smart phone market.

I do not like a lot of what Apple does, in that I think its bad for consumers, but its all probably perfectly legal under current laws.