As far as the Microsoft monopoly is concerned, no one is forced to use it.
The big problem is that this is not true.
Most of us *are* forced to use it, at least occasionally.
I mentioned SIMS in another post. We have had to spend in the order of 1,000 pounds to migrate our SIMS stuff from a Netware server which has worked fine for the last decade because the Capita don't know how they broke the Netware version of the SQL server FMS6 needs and don't support it anyway. (For those unfamiliar with Netware you usually install software from the server console, rather than by running a Windows install wizard on a workstation.) My other favourate is Alice (our LEA's official replacement for the defunct SIMS library module.) Where the updates have come with notes of the form "you must install this or that Microsoft upgrade before you install our software upgrade, but if it messes up you may be on your own". Where it comes to admin software "forced" can easily sum things up. (Chris is in a somewhat different situation here, since Felsted is a private school.)
You may be aware of many web sites that are difficult or impossible to use without MSIE, perhaps including our Government Gateway.
There is also the likes of http://support.swgfl.org.uk the new version of the support website for a regional broadband consortia. It isn't actually so much a website as an MS JAVA or Active-X application pretending to be a website. Only IE will cope with it... Certainly an issue to myself and Paul Taylor (not sure who else here might be in the South West of England. Also some of the other RBC's have RM as their "ISP" with very similar setups...) -- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763