Anyone who thinks there is a "new" Microsoft, one that isn't primarily interested in cornering even more of its monopoly markets, should heed the bullcrap this Microsoft spokesperson dished out the day before MacWorld. A couple of quick points here...

• Microsoft Office is outrageously priced considering the paltry amount Microsoft spends in its production. If it didn't hold a monopoly of the office productivity market, the price would be down near where Apple's iWork suite now is... $49!
• Microsoft charges way more for its operating system than is warranted by costs. Again, it gets away with this because it holds a monopoly on business desktops. For the business edition of Vista, Amazon.com has a discounted price of $250 (regularly $300), whereas Mac OS X Leopard (which isn't crippled like the "home" versions of Vista) runs $110 for a single license or $145 for a 5-pack.
• Microsoft also gets away with charging outrageous amounts for developers to play in their party. To get the bare minimum necessary for developing with Microsoft's tools, you have to shell out $2,500. For Apple? Zero, zilch. And that's for the entire enchilada, including the iPhone dev tools.

Now, who's actually charging a tax here? Seems very obvious to me.