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Want to see the whole article at once? So do I!

[printable version]
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArt icle.jhtml?articleID=196800208

Entire article on one page

Very interesting analysis. I thought Vista was supposed to make money. According to this Vista is going to bring 100,000 new jobs to the US.

The only association I've seen so far between Vista and spam is an insane number of messages offering "discount" copies of the OS.

Looks like the new FCC chairman is trying to change that and thinks that competition is good (??).

Check out this article -- FCC Preparing To Smooth The Way For TV Services By Phone Companies

No clue if it's true or not - I'm just hoping I have a better choice someday than Comcast or *gasp* *choke* Qwest!

You didnt read the article closely enough. It doesnt say what you're purporting it does.

From the article:
http://www.informationweek.com/software/showArticl e.jhtml?articleID=196600515

"Developers have abandoned Microsoft's Visual Basic in droves during the last six months, ..."

That's Visual Basic, not VB.NET, and definitely not C# or .NET.

They also did mention that VB.NET use was down:

"... VB.Net use is down 26%, the survey shows."

and they mention no loss of C# developers.

But there is no mention of developers abandoning .NET in droves, only VB6, which isnt surprising, considering its been EOL'd for quite a while now.

How about the fact that the few developers that poked at it for a while are now abandoning .Net in droves ? Cornell's opinions are just that, opinions. And except in certain alternate universes data and facts tend to outweigh opinions.

From the link above:

Java now holds the top spot, with 45% of the polled developers saying they used Java during some part of the last six months. C/C++, meanwhile, was used by 40% of the coders, ...

I have always had an interest in free software and alternative operating systems. Back in the 1990s, I heard about an interesting innovative operating system called BeOS. BeOS expressed a desire to peacefully coexist with Microsoft. Microsoft applied pressure to computer companies to not sell any computers with BeOS pre-installed, so BeOS went out of Business.

A few years earlier, in the 1990s, a company come out with their own DOS clone. From what I have heard, the Microsoft programmers designed some of the Microsoft products to give error messages when running under the DOS clone even when there really was not a problem.

Once Microsoft gained dominance they tried to squeeze out alternatives my fighting against open standards. They prefer to use proprietary standards instead. On various occasions they have also tried to take open standard and add proprietary extensions to them. That strategy is called extend, embrace and extinguish. Microsoft almost missed the Internet while promoting it's own proprietary alternatives. It almost missed the boat on that and Bill Gates quickly changed course. The Internet was created with open standards such as TCP/IP and HTML. Netscape was the dominate browser back then and the browser, to a large extent, controls what standards are used. If I remember correctly, I once read that Netscape even dared to publicly make some statements about the browser making the choice of operating system less significant. So somehow Microsoft had to destroy Netscape, perhaps, so that they could better influence what standards are used.

According to a website, "Lacking any decent technology of their own, Microsoft licensed the Mosaic web browser from Spyglass which they turned into Internet Explorer." That website then gos on to say "Microsoft royally screwed over Spyglass by licensing their code and then turning around and giving it away for free." By including it for free, pre-installed with Windows they destroyed Netscape and Spyglass. Since then Internet Explorer has become the dominant browser and is the only browser that in not standards compliant.

Sun Microsystems, developed Java a programming language what would allow programmer to create programs that are operating system dependent. Micrsoft bought a license for Java, from Sun, and then tried to add their own proprietary extensions to Java. Sun successfully sued them for violating the terms of the license.

The political fight against the effort to use open-standards such as ODF in Mass is another example. Microsoft prefers to keep their Open Office users locked-in with proprietary standards such as Office 12 XML instead.

About 6 or 7 years ago I stated using Linux which is a free open-source Unix clone operating system. There weren't many big advantages over Windows other than that Linux users didn't get computer viruses or infected by email mail attachments. It somehow more like I was more in control of what was installed on my computer and how it was configured. Furthermore, the GPL license allowed me to freely copy Linux and most of my free Linux programs from one computer to another. I no longer felt big brother Bill looking over my shoulder.

Since then, I Linux has improved to where Ubuntu Linux feels very polished complete and easy to use and install. Whenever I want some new program, I just use Synaptic to choose from the list of thousands of free programs and quickly download whatever free GPL licensed program that I want. I am totally happy with Ubuntu Linux.

Back about 5 or 6 years ago, I was still using Windows ME and Office 2000 on one of my computers. That computer had what I later realized was a slightly bad power supply

I think there's more to the declining sale than just a release of iTunes 7.0.

Are iTunes sales collapsing? Yesterday Reuters reported they are, and quoted a Forrester Research. Forrester denied it ever said it, and blamed the media for inaccurately reporting.

That this sort of trite is more important than the life of one of the actual innovators of this program. Shame on you slashdot. Though, sadly, I'm not surprised.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jh tml?articleID=196602670

Google has a near-monopoly on web searches

According to this, Google has about 45% of the market. Since when was less than half equivalent to "a near-monopoly"?

Who actually uses Yahoo any more, anyway?

28% of the market uses Yahoo.

i.e. The number of people using Yahoo to search is more than the number of people using Firefox to browse.

You can also point out that, when bugs are found, they tend to be fixed very rapidly, frequently within hours of their discovery. Since the source code is available to everyone, anyone affected can create an update to fix the problem. This happens exceedingly rarely in the closed-source world, despite the large numbers of bugs encountered.

Maybe MS is somehow is benefiting from the endless cycles of MSIE-based spyware, viruses, and general security problems. If not, then it (and we) would be much better off if MS should drop MSIE completely. Where does MS come out ahead financially? MSIE is probably the largest single public relations problem as well as one of largest security and productivity problems that MS produces these days.

The Netscape/DOJ v MS has been over for years. MSIE wastes our time, it wastes MS time. There's simply no need for anyone, even MS, to be wasting resources with MSIE. The public certainly has no reason to let MS foist on them such low quality security hole masquerading as a useful application. Drop MSIE or let users uninstall it completely.

Firefox and Opera are what people are using anyway. Go with the flow and invest the resources that would have gone into trying to keep life in MSIE go somewhere they'll actually have a chance of doing good.

"Sunbelt's testing has confirmed that Outlook 2003 is vulnerable -- in its most-patched SP2 version at least -- but that earlier editions of the e-mailer, including Outlook 2000 and Outlook 2002, are not at risk. Sunbelt has yet to test Outlook 2003 SP1."

Well, as of September 22nd it was vulnerable. I'm sure everyone updates their machines the instant that new patches come out, though.

Oh, and I assume you're talking about the TimeLine law suit? Actually that came about because TimeLine cancelled Microsoft's licensing agreement, which gave MS license to the patents. Unless you mean another law suit then please, stop trying to paint SQL Server as containing some sort of patent theft and Oracle as squeaky clean.

It's typical MS fud. They LOVE to harp on how many bugs their competition has, but there is a hell of a lot more to it than quantity. Slammer anyone?

Oracle is a huge robust database with lots of extremely security conscious clients. A high number of reported bugs and fixes shows that they're executing due diligence, and working to keep their system as secure as possible. MSSQL's low number of bugs suggests that Microsoft isn't digging hard into their code, but only waiting for big public flaws.

They used the same argument in claiming that IE was less buggy than Firefox (see this crappy article) and it's just as untrue in this case.

hi there steveo .. "I think his answer hit the nail, head on!"

"I do see how Microsoft wouldn't care about free software because it isn't on their radar screen. I don't know of much free software that is really competitive because truly free software doesn't have the support that it needs to compete with software that does have support"

How do you explain the existance of the Firebird Database project. It isn't 'free' but free to use and extend as you see fit as long as you contribute changes back to the community.

"I'd rather see ad-bloated "free" software like Google Mail than bug-ridden memory-leaking software like Thunderbird. I use Firefox, but it is still a memory leaker that competes well with IE in terms of falling apart over a few hours of work"

I would never know about the 'memory leaker' if it wasn't mentioned so ofter on slashdot. Firefox using 48,572kb on this XP box. How about KMail or Evolution.

"The Indians will want nothing to do with it. India has a history of thousands of years of being capitalists -- only recently did we really see socialism take over"

You can be a capitalist and still make money out of Open Source. Why do you erronously equate Open Source with socialism. In fact it is the exact opposite of socialism as there is no central authority unlike MS that by your logic could be compared to corporate faschism.

"The Indians aren't afraid of finding a way to make money on everything they can -- in order to better their own lives without a big expense to anyone else"

translation: Indians who use Open Source are diverting revenue from Redmond.

"if you go to countries where people don't like to work for free .. you won't see a social drive to giving away their labor"

A total distortion of Open Source. Developers use Open Source and sell solutions to clients. They contribute any changes back to the community. They both derive and get benefit from the arrangment.

was India and free don't go well together (Score:2, Distortion)

...'But spyware researcher Ben Edelman doubts that the company has reformed its ways. "I commend the FTC's efforts here, but serious diligence will be required to assure that [the company] actually complies with its many obligations under the settlement," Edelman said in an e-mail on Friday. "At this instant, I am confident that [the company] is not in compliance."...

..."[The company] continues plenty of bad practices, including some unlabeled ads and installation attempts predicated on security exploits," said Edelman. "I have the proof, and I expect to post this on my Web site in the coming weeks, subject only to my busy travel schedule." Zango's adware has been installed over 70 million times, according to the FTC. Its adware includes programs such as Zango Search Assistant, 180Search Assistant, Seekmo, and n-CASE. Often installed by third-party affiliates, the software monitors Internet use to display pop-up advertising. To date, the adware has displayed some 6.9 billion pop-up ads."'...

source

You mean like these people hired to write them?

http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml ?articleID=163702855

-- Terry

So, I guess that little high-profile dinner some time back wherein ms got assurances that windows would win in China were not to be. Seems ms is being mshafted.

They wanted pervasiveness/pervasion. Well, they have pervAsian. Yeh,

Red Flag Linux?: maybe 5 RMB

A Linux distro in most places?: what you want to pay for it

windows, maybe even Vista? PRICE-LESS

windows will be "everywhere", but it will be "priceless!", not "priceless"

A First Look at Asianux 1.0
http://lwn.net/Articles/90823/

Asianux, recent stuff (need javascript on to see the site... sheesh....)
http://www.asianux.com/asianux.do

Microsoft Fights Piracy In China, Linux Wins
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml ?articleID=170700943

Red Flag Linux (from 2004-ish)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&q=red+flag+linux&btnG=Search

Korea, China, Japan start open-source collaboration (from 2004)
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,3915 0645,00.htm

Unseating a software giant
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Management-Focus/Unseat ing-a-software-giant/2005/06/13/1118514959694.html

Yes siree... ms is could have a hard time as Asia reasserts its position in the world. They are NOT going to "meekly fork over billions of dollars year after year to microsoft..."

Hmmmm...

Did you know that you have been quoted in Information Week?

You've got it backwards.

"You can't implement DRM if the user can patch the kernel to work around the DRM. Thus, they're going to try to prevent end-users from having the capacity to modify this behavior of their own computer."

Kernel patching is what Sony's rootkit, Starforce, and many other malware use to _enforce_ DRM on you. PatchGuard would have prevented these from the start.

Now there are things like Protected Audio Path and the like that probably benefit from PG, but these are minor, and you can opt out of using them if you like (just dont use the DRM content). But when any random software company (like sony) can patch the kernel of user's machines, then THEY get to decide how your system runs, and what works.

"The "security companies" are taking collateral damage from this, because their applications have to intercept all reads/writes (to files, the network, whatever) in order to scan all data against a blacklist of known malware in order to try to protect the comically fragile userspace. This scanning is implemented through kernel patches, I guess."

Only the incompetent ones. Sophos, TrendNet, AVG and others are all having zero problems working with PatchGuard.

Here's some good discussion on these topics:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jh tml?articleID=193401506

http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/20 06/10/vista-admins.html

http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/20 06/10/sophos-vista.html

Weren't they warned about this problem several months ago? Or is this yet another one???

In my mind, there's no question that this is the REAL future of computing. Why would you carry a computer anywhere, except for a portable to work in weird places? Otherwise you just need to carry your env. Eventually of course, every computer will be networked -- and then you'll just log in and your settings will be downloaded, but till then, you can even carry Windows on your thumb drive if you so choose. So what's so special about carrying your settings?

Firefox Losing Marketshare, Internet Explorer Gaining.

There the Dutch company said that Safari only accounts for 1.6% of the market, compared to what this article says.

I'm looking forward to Firefox 3.0. I hear it washes your dishes and matches your socks.

Safe... I can't say. But for a big time saver you should SLIPSTREAM an install CD/DVD which consists of applying service packs and patches to the contents of the original disk, then burning it to a fresh cd. Next load requires no long wait to download SP2 and what patches you've already slipstreamed.

see http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2 _slipstream.asp

Then, you can also use the non-destructive, no reformat rebuild to replace damaged or corrupted files using this method http://www.informationweek.com/LP/showArticle.jhtm l?articleID=189400897&pgno=1&queryText=

In reality, I don't think Apple was all that "pro DRM" at all. They simply agreed to it in order to successfully get the whole iTunes music store off to a start with major record labels on-board.

The IT profession is growing faster than other occupations in part because it fell harder during the recession that followed the dot-com bust. In mid-2004, IT unemployment stood at 5.3%, after the industry shed 160,000 jobs in just three years. The IT unemployment rate last month [June 2006] was 2.2%, the lowest it has been since the beginning of the decade, according to InformationWeek's analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics data...

From mid-2004 to June of this year [2006], the number of IT jobs grew 5.6%, far outpacing other professions. The number of employed accountants grew 3%, attorneys 0.4%, and registered nurses fell 1.4%. The number of managers across all professions rose 3.4%.

So much for honest competition.

"I bet 85% of the people responding haven't even read the article"

I stopped taking notice of Gartner and the like a long time ago ..

"Linux is still not ready for widescale deployment on the desktop, according to analyst firm Gartner"

"Would their respect for Gartner's advice change if they knew the firm is indirectly owned by dozens of big-money investors who control some of the same companies Gartner evaluates?"

".. the Gartner Group (Framingham, MA) estimates that the total cost of ownership (TCO) for a networked Windows 95 PC is $9784 a year .."

"Gartner believes that most of the Linux shipments will eventually have illegal copies of Windows installed--a fact that makes Linux's seeming dominance of this market somewhat misleading,"

was Re:Feeling threatened?

from http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArt icle.jhtml?articleID=191901844 "I've always been amazed at the Apollo spacecraft guidance system, built by the MIT Instrumentation Lab. In 1969, this software got Apollo 11 to the moon, detached the lunar module, landed it on the moon's surface, and brought three astronauts home. It had to function on the tiny amount of memory available in the onboard Raytheon computer--it carried 8 Kbytes, not enough for a printer driver these days. And there wouldn't be time to reboot in case of system failure when the craft made re-entry. It's just as well Windows wasn't available for the job. The Apollo guidance system probably seems like routine software to technology sophisticates. Far more complex navigational systems are in operation today. The system's essentials were a few well-known algorithms based on proven logic. But to me, it's still rocket science. Great software dazzles us by virtue of what it does correctly in the face of everything that could go wrong." Whow, can you do that without 80 cores?

The kicker though, there's been zero day exploits that weren't patched before Patch Tuesday anyway. I can fully understand the desire to test it as thoroughly as possible, so I'm not too concerned about the 8 day delay (given the quagmire of code they have to work with)

What the surprise here is they DID release it early. This has happened only twice before, once with the Windows Meta File (back at the start of the year, http://www.informationweek.com/windows/showArticle .jhtml?articleID=175802202 ), which seemed to be under duress, and second with the DRM patch. More surprising is this one looks like it was done voluntarily.

Is anybody reading slashdot truly stupid enough to believe that if Firefox had an 80% market share it wouldn't be just as readily targetted and exploited? It is really easy to wagon jump, and thats fine based on performance and features, especially if a feature is security. But rest assured that magic guaranteed security is itself a feature of low adoption, and an illusion. Firefox is definitely getting popular, it doesn't even hang or die much anymore. Keep in mind that it only takes 1 exploit to destroy a user's machine and either destroy or steal their data. Would you rather have a gun to your head with 1 bullet in it, or with 15? Can you answer that seriously?

Firefox, god's answer to the internet, shoots lightning bolts outta its arse. Safe beyond safe, if you're a sucker.

2005
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=103

2006
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jh tml?articleID=179101966
http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2006/04/pssstyou-w anna-see-firefox-exploit-in.html
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1814056,00.as p
http://www.xatrix.org/article.php?s=4447
http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?n ewsID=6554&pagtype=all
http://hackcraft.wordpress.com/2006/08/02/firefox- exploit-exposed-by-hackers/

Unfortunately, paper trails aren't foolproof either.

Even faster !

Here is the original:

http://www.informationweek.com/management/showArti cle.jhtml?articleID=192203311&pgno=1

and here is O'Reilly's columnist response:

http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2006/08/who_is_ the_leader_in_ajax_appl.html?CMP=OTC-TY3388567169& ATT=Google+is+not+the+leader+in+Ajax+applications

Also what are these "damages" for exactly? Having to use 10 seconds of your time to delete an e-mail and use up a tiny bit of extra bandwidth?

Will $22 Billion a year qualify as "damages" for you?

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j html?articleID=59300834

Still too harsh of a penalty?

To confirm you're not a script, please type the word in this image: sympathy
No, spammers don't get any from me.

And no, this isn't old news - a 500 MIPS CPU upgrade in Mar 2005 with a 3-year service contract.

> http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.j html?articleID=159903673
>
> "Mar 21, 2005 04:00 PM
>
> More than 30 HP S88000 NonStop severs running HP OpenView enterprise-management
> software and containing more than 500 MIPS R16000 processors were recently
> installed at the Nasdaq data center, says Steve Randich,
> executive VP and CIO for Nasdaq.
> "

I'll follow that helpful (!) post up with a link to the printable version with all 5 pages on one.

While there are many "techie" people like greatcelerystalk who know what they want, we have to keep in mind that Amazon is selling to the entire spectrum. My mom, new to computers this year, finds comfort in the Amazon experience. It's an entire shopping mall--just what women love (yes, I am generalizing). So shoppers who know what they are looking for, or are simply buying on price, may not use the recommendations, I would suspect that a significant, if not majority of the population may be enticed to buy something. I admit to having purchased several books that were recommended to me.

Now, the more significant issue revolves around the depth of the information Amazon is amassing on you and me. Sure, you can learn just as much about me from my blog or slashdot journal, but that's my choice. I recognize that Amazon has stated "opt-in" information. But when was the last time you read a EULA or the Privacy Policy page for NewEgg? You can be opted-in to just about anything. Then, personal private data is stored, waiting to be hacked into or. Or better yet, published in the name of research!

Ultimately, this trend will not stop. Twenty years ago, had people known the level of personal information that we would be storing today, they would have had the same reactionary quivering that we feel today. It's simply the unstoppable progression of technology integration into human life.

Back in January, related to the story on how the DoJ demands and gets ISP data, AOL had said that "We did not comply with the request made in the subpoena," spokesman Andrew Weinstein said. "Instead, we gave the Department of Justice a list of aggregate anonymous search terms that did not include results or any personally identifiable information."

AOL- you need to rethink that phrase personally identifiable, because it doesn't seem to mean what you think it means. You're hiding behind one technical definition of PII, without concern about whether or not the results actually have PII. If you're releasing results with personally identifying information, then you cannot say you're not releasing PII. I'd written in January I'd writen "I question this assumption by Yahoo, AOL, etc. that search terms, by themselves, have no privacy considerations because they've been separated from personal info. What if the search itself contains personal information? Are the search companies deleting the timestamps and randomizing the order of the search terms themselves? Because otherwise I could see personal info showing up." Obviously, half a year later, they still think that replacing a name with a number takes away the PII. They need to have a talk with, say, the Census Department, about why the department will withhold data about *groups* of businesses in a region. Grouped data can easily become PII data if you can tease out characteristics. AOL didn't even group the data!

As always, relevant quotes from the best.essay.evar on why privacy is a fundamental human right: "If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm..."

"...agents of the state in Canada cannot order Canada Post to photocopy the address on every envelope we send, nor can they order bookstores to keep a record of every book we buy, let alone of every page of every magazine we leaf through. There is no reason why they should be able to exercise such powers with regard to every e-mail someone sends or every Web site he or she visits."

"I do not see any reason why e-mails should be subject to a lower standard of privacy protection than letters or telephone calls. And I do not see why Internet browsing should be subject to a lower standard of protection than book purchasing or researching in a reference library. Canadians should not be subject to greater state monitoring or scrutiny just because they choose to use new communication technologies."

I agree with most of the people here that purchasing a key online is the best direction to go.

However, if you can't or don't want to for some reason, you can still buy the same version of Windows XP that you have installed and reinstall without losing any files or programs. Basically, using the installer you can "repair" a broken install of Windows XP and the installer will replace system files on your computer, but nothing else will be messed with. See here:

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArt icle.jhtml?articleID=189400897

I would look into a repair installation as described above.

For detailed instructions with screenshots, check out the article, Langa Letter: XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option.

The article claims that "this option lets you completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving already-installed software alone (no reinstallation needed!)."

Screen Twelve of this walkthrough shows that you enter a product key, which should resolve the O/S-laundering scheme you seek.

As always, there is no guarantee, so you should back up your important data.

I would look into a repair installation as described above.

For detailed instructions with screenshots, check out the article, Langa Letter: XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option.

The article claims that "this option lets you completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving already-installed software alone (no reinstallation needed!)."

Screen Twelve of this walkthrough shows that you enter a product key, which should resolve the O/S-laundering scheme you seek.

As always, there is no guarantee, so you should back up your important data.

This may be of value http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArt icle.jhtml?articleID=189400897

"...how to completely rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation without losing data, and without having to reinstall user software, reformat, or otherwise destructively alter the setup."

http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml;j sessionid=STKGFAI0KVUKAQSNDLPSKH0CJUNN2JVN?article ID=189400897&queryText=nondestructive+

The result is I have to reformat their PC every couple of months because of Spyware Soon I will instruct them how to reformat and re-install the OS and software themselves and later on administer their own PCs. I figure this is the new way to make kids "online smart"... let them experience pain and then they wil learn.

Not when the pain is self-inflicted: Langa Letter: XP's No-Reformat, Nondestructive Total-Rebuild Option

What your kids should be learning is how to setup and live with parental controls, a limited user account, how to install and use anti-virus, Ad-Aware, Windows Defender, McAfee SiteAdvisor, etc.

Wal-Mart is a big backer of RFID tech. The company set a 2005 deadline for its 100 top suppliers to use it on pallets of products (rather than individual cereal boxes), and tested the tech in Texas in 2004. Wal-Mart reported some success, but there were also problems. Not sure what the latest news is. If such chips are going to be everywhere, then we should encourage everyone to have readers for them so that the information on them is in everyone's hands, not just governments' and corporations'. For an example of how people could use this tech, see the cyberpunk story "Maneki Neko," about a Web-mediated barter club.

-MSN Messenger is beating ICQ, AIM, Y!Messenger

Last I checked, AIM has a lead of over 10 million subscribers, and is fairly entrenched in parts of the world. Unless that changed since...ummm...a week ago.

-X-Boxen are outselling Sony Playstatia

LOL: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul 2006/tc20060717_049057.htm?chan=top+news_top+news
Sony is STILL selling more PS2's than Microsoft is selling their brand new Xbox360

-MSN Seach is gaining market share against Google and Yahoo

Ummm, yeah, sure buddy, if you say so: http://www.informationweek.com/internet/showArticl e.jhtml?articleID=189601102

Do you always make stuff up and then state it as fact? Took me about 30 seconds for each of your points to find a link to rebut it. I could probably do the others, but they are outside my area of interest. MSN gaining share on Google?!?!? If you'd read that link, you'd know in the short term MSN is stalled while Google is still gaining, and over the last year Google has posted pretty impressive gains, while MSN has lost marketshare.

Apple now has 50% marketshare on the desktop and Microsoft will be bankrupt in a year. OpenOffice.org has knocked MS Office revenues down 90% YOY....Geee, I guess it is kind of fun making stuff up.