Is Apple the New Bully on the Block?

by Michael Santo — Monday, September 10, 2007, 05:42 AM EDT

For a long, long time Microsoft was thought of as the big bully in technology - the company you loved to hate. ComputerWorld has an interesting opinion piece that proposes Microsoft's place has been taken by Apple, and a lot of the arguments make sense.

The core complaint about Microsoft in the 1990s was that its Windows market share gave it monopoly power, which it abused in multiple ways. Attorneys General and others zeroed in on the "bundling" of the Internet Explorer Web browser, which they claimed was forced on users because Microsoft offered it as part of Windows.

People love iPods (including me; my family of four has purchased 12 iPods in the past few years). But iPods come bundled with iTunes. Want to buy music from Apple? Guess what? You must install iTunes. Want an Apple cell phone from AT&T? Yep! ITunes is required even if you want only to make phone calls. Want to buy ringtones for your Apple phone? ITunes.

Apple not only "bundles" iTunes with multiple products, it forces you to use it. At least with Internet Explorer, you could always just download a competitor and ignore IE.

The section about Apple's bullying tactics focused mostly on Apple's treatment of its corporate "partners." We would have loved to have seen a focus on some of their letigious behavior, such as suing anyone in sight with the word "Pod" in their product name. A prime example was the Profit Pod, a product that makes it easier for arcades to figure out how many of those tickets that you trade in for those “valuable” prizes have been spit out by a game - which looks nothing like any sort of MP3 player.

Tags: Apple, App, Lock, block, pple, appl, BU, AP, K

Is Apple the New Bully on the Block?

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