Is Apple the new badguy?

[Grim]

As pundits, bloggers, users, politicians, Hollywood big shots, regulators, lawyers and competitors increasingly bash Apple, accuse it of unfair play and call for legal and regulatory action, I will defend it, as I defended Microsoft. It's fun to slam big, powerful companies that are dominating their markets. But in the final analysis, Apple has earned its growing power and influence, just like Microsoft did.

Damn straight. It's always easier (and more fun) to poke at the bigger companies in terms of complaints. Mostly because people have much to gain from taking down a giant. It's only natural though that the more a company gets older and bigger, the less innovative it tends to get. Of course, once in a while a company comes up with something ingenious and markets it very well that it well alone pulls them up from the depths.

I've seen both love, hate and understanding for the Microsoft way of doing things on forums around. The love mostly comes from not knowing anything better, or just plain contentment. The hate usually comes from either personal experience or <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_uncertainty_and_doubt' target='_blank'>FUD</a>. The understanding usually comes from having used both, and finding both workable and having their own merits. It's the same with Apple and its products. You're going to have a majority of lovers, quite a few haters, and some in the middle.

You see, my point isn't that Apple's growing bad reputation is deserved, but that Microsoft's wasn't.

This I don't really agree with. Microsoft (and specifically Mr. Bill Gates) has said some things against the open-source community which started this whole uproar in the past. You do reap what you sow.

All that evil monopoly hype, court cases and public posturing directed for so long at Microsoft drained energy and resources from the entire industry. The market, however, corrects issues such as that. In the case of Microsoft's "monopoly," Linux, Firefox and now Apple prove that customers always had choices.

Choices huh? It seems he totally forgot about his dad example, speaking from a strictly legal point of view. There are alternatives to iTunes in other operating systems, but they're not as up-to-date as the real one. It's still either that or piracy. Which is what...