LOL. Was that old? It was funny, but that was the worst Bill Gates impression ever.

1.  No, every moron conpiracy theorist out there THINKS Microsoft is a monopoly.  Every educated person who knows what a monopoly actually is knows that Microsoft is NOT a monopoly. 

2.  Yes, boycott Microsoft.  So basically you're boycotting almost the entire genre of PC gaming as well as an entire half of the HD console generation.  All because of your misinterpretation of the word "monopoly".  Sony is every bit as evil of a company as Microsoft is.  Shouldn't you boycott them too?  How soon we forget that a couple of years ago Sony was trying to slip rootkits on to our PCs by adding them to all audio CDs or that they charge such a high premium for their latest console because they're trying to shove BluRay down everyone's throat.  Shouldn't we just boycott them too?  How about Nintendo who has drastically decreased the manufacturing cost of the Wii, yet still will not lower the price one cent. 

3.  But let's get back to the monopoly thing for a moment.  Have you noticed at all that Apple is digging more into Microsoft's market share these days?  Have you noticed all the companies switching over to Linux to save money on licensing?  Have you noticed that Microsoft is putting on a pretty aggressive Apple-targeted marketing campaign right now in order to finally address those BS "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials?  If Microsoft was a monopoly, none of this would be going on. 

You can "boycott" whatever you want for whatever stupid reason you want, but at least understand what you're boycotting first.  I truly believe that 95% of all boycotts are unfounded and that about 99% of all INTERNET boycotts are completely pointless and baseless.  Especially these "army of one" boycotts like "Boycott ***** because they didn't give a good review to a game I like!!"

Please.

It's interesting how people bash Microsoft but what other company in the same position wouldn't be doing the exact same thing they are?

Oh and the Royal Canadian Air Farce is pretty funny, I used to watch them a lot.

nokia have most the marketshare over 40%, but they don't have a monopoly and there is a fierce price / quality / features competition in the cellphone market.

not so much in the OS market.

I wont say if Microsoft is a monopoly or not, but yes if they are it would matter. For instance Comcast cable wasn't around as much a few years back, Comcast goes around and buys up as many cable company as they can eliminating thousands of jobs. Fast forward a few years later and I'm paying $150 a month for my cable/internet because there is no competition in the area to bring that price down. Same thing with Ticketmater why in the world do I have to pay double the price of a concert ticket in Ticketmaster fees is very frustrating. If Ticketmaster had some competition that people got behind tickets would be a lot lower. (a lot can be said about Ticketmaster but I wont bring all that up) The ipod is the main reason Apple is really relevant today. The Microsoft Zune comes out and is doing bad so far (similar to the original Xbox (lost billions)) Now if the Zune in the end kills the Ipod Apple may not exist and millions of jobs are lost. One can argue if Nintendo and Sony are bullied out of the video game industry jobs are lost and they can charge whatever they want for games/consoles. Very few companies can come out with a system like the Xbox lose billions and not care. With unemployment as high as it is now we don't need big companies eliminating more jobs by killing off other companies. I can see an argument either way for if Microsoft is a monopoly or not but its easy to answer your question as to if it matters or not.

@Dominicator: M$ has virtual monopoly in operating systems. Its position in the market somewhat equals a monopoly. And practically from every PC software devs view, we are talking about monopoly.

They are changing to Linux and then back, due to M$ being able of putting a preassure on HW manufacturers on chinese and indian markets.

Boycotting, voting with your wallet, is the only way to have effect on whether someone will have a monopoly or not. Besides, as you said, M$ doesn't have a real monopoly, people have options to choose.

It matters because competition causes innovation and produce better production with better deals for the end user (ie: us).

Look at Firefox! Can you honestly say to yourself that IE would be what it is today without the competition and innovation brought about by firefox?

I'm sure Microsoft would be more competitive if Windows only had 40% of the market.  What I'm talking about though is that some people think of Microsoft as an "evil" company because of their monopoly and business practices but any company in the same situation would likely do the same thing. 

Some might even do more, lets look at Nintendo during the monopoly they enjoyed with the NES:

"Nintendo's near monopoly on the home video game market left it with a degree of influence over the industry exceeding even that of Atari during Atari's heyday in the early 1980s. Unlike Atari, which never actively courted third-party developers (and even went to court in an attempt to force Activision to cease production of Atari 2600 games), Nintendo had anticipated and encouraged the involvement of third-party software developers—but strictly on Nintendo's terms. To this end, a 10NES authentication chip was placed in every console, and another was placed in every officially licensed cartridge. If the console's chip could not detect a counterpart chip inside the cartridge, the game would not load. Because Nintendo controlled the production of all cartridges, it was able to enforce strict rules on its third-party developers. Third-party developers were also asked to sign a contract by Nintendo that would obligate these parties to develop exclusively for the system. These extremely restricted production runs would end up damaging several smaller software developers: even if demand for their games was high, they could only produce as much profit as Nintendo allowed."

Now could you imagine the uproar if Microsoft attempted to lock out developers from using Windows unless they licensed it and could only produce an amount that Microsoft allowed?  What about if the developers were also forced to sign an agreement not to develop for any other operating system?

I guess what I'm saying is that other companies have done similar things or even worse but it seems like people want to make an example or Microsoft.

@Legend11: Actually, the reason for M$ getting fined by EU, is very similar to what the Nintendos near monopoly was. And in both cases, despite the downsides, the devs still choose the platform because it's financially the best thing to do (which, of course, makes it even worse). Though, in Nintendos case, there still was a large installbase of computers to choose from.

The limited production also made sure that the big devs couldn't flood the market (or take excessive shelf space), which in the other hand, helped the small devs.