Apple doesn't have a monopoly on tablets and Google doesn't have a monopoly on search, but people always throw them out as such.

Microsoft, however, has the monopolies (plural).

Btw, here are the numbers to prove that the iPad is not a monopoly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/25/ipad-tablet...

Wouldn't it be great if Windows only had a 65%-70% market share?

The install base is what matters, not sales numbers for a short time period.

>Google doesn't have a monopoly on search,

Maybe you would like to look at a few real world numbers like these ones:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3458947

I doubt if Microsoft would agree with your search numbers. Can you provide some accepted industry source? At any rate, if you want to switch search engines, it's trivial:

http://duckduckgo.com/

http://bing.com/

http://yahoo.com/

Let me know how easy it is to get enterprise to switch off the Office document formats or off of Windows.

As for tablets, sales do matter. The Kindle Fire sold around 5.5 million units. Android will be a strong player.

That prospect doesn't bother anyone. Apple can be twice as restrictive as Microsoft, and people will still be raising a fuss over what MS does.

How do we know? Well, it's happening right now.

It bothers me.

Our reservations about Apple should mirror those about Microsoft. Good design and UX are not excuses to be complacent. I highly suggest watching Cory Doctorow's recent 28c3 talk on "The Coming War on General Computation": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg