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not to mention a version of IE higher than 6.

Then why not install IE8 on XP?
Microsoft IE8 Page. Blah blah blah
The taskbar for Vista isnt good enough to upgrade to. Actually I switch between XP and Vista and don't find any real difference in using the taskbar other than instead of using run and search for opening up cmd etc.

I'd just like to briefly point out that XP isn't exactly dead. It just won't see any new features or enhancements such as SP2 or SP3.

However, Microsoft has committed to extended support (critical security patches) until 4/8/2014. That gives it a 12+ year shelf life.

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223

According to Microsoft's 1st quarter 2009 earnings report, net income for the quarter was 4.37 billion US$.

Assuming a quarter has 90 days (and not distinguishing between working and non working days), MS makes
4370000000 / (90 * 24 * 60) = 33719 US$/minute
which means that Microsoft will make the 12.000.000 US$ in less than 7 hours - and this including non-working days, and assuming 24-hour days.

If you're not MS, you may weep now.

This says it all really. http://www.microsoft.com/READER/find/book.aspx?isbn=0759516677

You know, I guess it depends. I wouldn't port an application from Perl to something else. But I'm not sure I'd base a new project on Perl either.

There are some things about perl that could be fixed that might change my mind:

1) Dump Perldoc and liberally rip from javadoc and XML comments. I know both of these got their start from perldoc, but perldoc needs to catch up.
2) Make sure the IDE actually uses said docs. Once your IDE's intellesense sucks up your comments and uses them while you are typing in a method, you are rewarded for documenting your stuff. Nothing like positive feedback to encourage good habits.
3) Finish EPIC. Perl needs IDE support. Syntax coloring and auto-indentation does not make for an IDE.
4) Get rid of this my $blah_param = shift; crap and start making function declarations that work like everybody else: sub myDopeFunction($blah_param){}. This coupled with perldoc's suckage lead to hard to maintain code
5) Give a couple million to the Template::Toolkit guys. They rock.
6) Mystery option.

Okay, I guess I'll do it for you.

SLAM

BLAST

yogi

pldi

popl

Well, Microsoft researchers are involved, to some extent, in some research that is, well, extending some old stuff in ways that might be new. Groundbreaking, maybe, to some people.

Maybe these tools will help generate "correct" code for some definition of correctness. But have these guys defended their choice of definition of "correctness"? Have they shown how it applies to the real world? Is the application field a niche field, or will it help with OSses and general end-user applications?
But, to me, it just seems to be heading the wrong direction. I've been there. All I could find down those paths is more of the same blind alleys. Maybe they'll find something interesting, if so, good for them.

Does it really help solve the problems were are facing in the current market? How does it help users solve their junk e-mail problems? How does it clean up the botnets? How does it prevent users from clicking OK and adding to the botfarms?

How does it give users safe, secure, _minimal_ browsers for checking their bank accounts and making payments for purchases?

Research is all well and good, but this is not what the market needs now.

So their overall performance is even worse than I realized? Wow.

The MS stock price has gone down. But back in 1999 I don't think Microsoft paid dividends. The earliest this shows MS paying a dividend was in 2003. Before then MS kept the money. This says MS has consistently increased dividends since. There was also a stock split in 2003. It was a 2 for 1 split and the day before the closing MS stock price was $48.30 and after the closing price was $24.96.

Falcon

So their overall performance is even worse than I realized? Wow.

The MS stock price has gone down. But back in 1999 I don't think Microsoft paid dividends. The earliest this shows MS paying a dividend was in 2003. Before then MS kept the money. This says MS has consistently increased dividends since. There was also a stock split in 2003. It was a 2 for 1 split and the day before the closing MS stock price was $48.30 and after the closing price was $24.96.

Falcon

No, XP, Vista, Win7 all have the limit, but I'm not so sure about Server versions.

They don't consider it a "flaw", as they boast it as malware limiting, and under most situations, it's irrelevant because 10 new connections a second is about 5 times more than most applications need. Excluding P2P, and a few Games.

Event ID: 4226

However, they haven't made it any harder to bypass, Hex editing, or one of a few automated versions out there for XP, Vista and Win7.

You mean that "open source" Moonlight that you are leaving full of Microsoft patent timebombs -- Microsoft patent infected code that is being incorporated into Moonlight under the guise of being open because of the Novell Microsoft agreement?

First of all, there is no Microsoft code that is being incorporated into Moonlight. Microsoft provides some closed-source codecs, but those are packaged separately.

As for Silverlight itself, all the relevant specs are covered by the Open Specification Promise, so Moonlight is quite safe to use on any Linux box - insofar as Linux itself doesn't violate any MS patents (heh!).

So why don't you take a walk back to your basement instead?

This is how Microsoft explains Conficker to the home user: Protect yourself from the Conficker computer worm

Rather well done, I think.

Show me the law that makes installing a purchased copy of Microsoft Office on more than one computer illegal.

Office is a bad example because even Microsoft explicitly grants the right to install retail Office on a second laptop.

From the Microsoft Office FAQ:

Can I install my copy of Microsoft Office on two laptops?

Yes, the licensed device may be a portable device. The secondary portable installation right is for use of the primary user of the first installed copy only and must be on a portable device. If you are the primary user of the licensed device, you may install a second copy on another laptop, but the copy of Microsoft Office on that laptop may only be used by you.

January 22, 2009 â" Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $16.63 billion for the second quarter ended Dec. 31, 2008, a 2% increase over the same period of the prior year.

A little quick calculation shows that $388 million is slightly less than 2.4% of that--which neatly wipes out that gain on the previous year.

Just because its not devastating to them doesnt mean its insignificant.

Software patents are trivial because what they protect is not scarce.

Microsoft gets the paycheck for what it resisted so violently, even with lobbyists in third nations: sane patent reform.

Read this IPwatch article to get an idea what is going on in the Microsoft community. Phelps says:

What we've tried to do with "Burning the Ships" is take IP questions out of the realm of arcane debate among lawyers and show real people, in the midst of a highly dramatic internal struggle at Microsoft, learning how to deploy IP for tangible business benefit. As one reader put it, the book is a "thoroughly entertaining and informative canâ(TM)t-wait-to-get-to-the-next-page read."

Marshall Phelps wants to turn Microsoft into a kind of patent troll, or as they call it "open innovation".

IPW: A basic lesson in the book could be interpreted as, 'We were getting hurt by others who had patents, so we used our market power to require partners to agree not to enforce their patents until we had enough of our own patents to start enforcing them the way we didnâ(TM)t want others to do to us.' Can you address that?

PHELPS: Remember, this was back before software patents were a fact of life. MS was just getting a real head of steam but wasnâ(TM)t at all sure patenting was the way to go.

So either Microsoft kicks its bastards out or it simply deserves to suffer from these fines of a rotten patent system.

Ah, this is Marshall Phelps. A dark side of IBM import.

Sure, the recent job losses at Microsoft will not affect their "creation of IP". Look at SCO! Developers leave your company and lawyers litigate you to the ground. Great business model.

Price point depends on the server workload pattern. Non-paywalled article http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/76522/tr-2008-169.pdf

How about a slashdot policy of not linking to articles behind paywalls?

Seriously, it's even worse than the "free registration required" links that we used to have problems with.

Original PDF at http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/76522/tr-2008-169.pdf.

How about this one: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912650

Incredibly annoying, and it doesn't just affect tooltips. Switching windows (alt+tabbing, clicking a program on the task bar, or just clicking on a program window) will often bring the wrong window to the front, etc. Their resolutions are very disruptive as well.

As you know, it's worse than you say.

The Slashdot story is excessively pro-Microsoft, in my opinion. Quoting the Slashdot story: "... over seven years after the OS originally shipped..." That gives a much more positive impression than is warranted, in my opinion.

Windows XP had very serious problems until the release of Service Pack 2. So Windows XP release version is only 4 1/2 years old.

Service Pack 3 fixed many, many, many bugs that Microsoft itself called "critical". So the final, fully usable version of Windows XP has been available less than a year. A year of good use is not much in return for 6 years of numerous cases of grief and hassles and huge maintenance expense.

Vista was an attempt to get people to abandon Windows XP. Vista was first released about two years ago.

So, one version of the Windows product, Windows XP, was not fully finished until more than a year after the next version, Windows Vista, was first sold, although Windows Vista was so unfinished that it was rejected in the marketplace.

When the version of Windows called Windows 7 is released, many people will be buying their third version of the Windows OS in only two years, even though one of the versions, Vista, was never finished.

That's product churning.

Sooner or later the average buyer will realize that they don't need Microsoft's pushy "upgrades", which all must use much more CPU power, because Microsoft's real customers, the big computer hardware manufacturers, want everyone to buy new hardware. Microsoft is trying to continue creating an artificial market, and the average buyer is becoming more aware of that.

As you know, it's worse than you say.

The Slashdot story is excessively pro-Microsoft, in my opinion. Quoting the Slashdot story: "... over seven years after the OS originally shipped..." That gives a much more positive impression than is warranted, in my opinion.

Windows XP had very serious problems until the release of Service Pack 2. So Windows XP release version is only 4 1/2 years old.

Service Pack 3 fixed many, many, many bugs that Microsoft itself called "critical". So the final, fully usable version of Windows XP has been available less than a year. A year of good use is not much in return for 6 years of numerous cases of grief and hassles and huge maintenance expense.

Vista was an attempt to get people to abandon Windows XP. Vista was first released about two years ago.

So, one version of the Windows product, Windows XP, was not fully finished until more than a year after the next version, Windows Vista, was first sold, although Windows Vista was so unfinished that it was rejected in the marketplace.

When the version of Windows called Windows 7 is released, many people will be buying their third version of the Windows OS in only two years, even though one of the versions, Vista, was never finished.

That's product churning.

Sooner or later the average buyer will realize that they don't need Microsoft's pushy "upgrades", which all must use much more CPU power, because Microsoft's real customers, the big computer hardware manufacturers, want everyone to buy new hardware. Microsoft is trying to continue creating an artificial market, and the average buyer is becoming more aware of that.

It's exceedingly fallacious to say that the real world cost of a copy of Windows is ~$440.

The majority of people get their Windows licenses through OEM's like Dell or HP. Granted, an OEM license of Windows doesn't confer the same rights and privileges as a retail boxed license (for example, you can't install an OEM license in a VM or move it to your new built-from-parts computer), it's disingenuous to assume that the average purchase of a Windows license isn't an OEM one. Further, even a retail boxed copy of Vista Ultimate is $319 *direct* from Microsoft, significantly lower than the price you seem to think it is.

You may think that Microsoft's licensing options are ridiculous (and they are), but don't conflate your ignorance of them into the assumption that nothing Microsoft sells is remotely affordable.

Junctions = the old paths, like the Application Data directory

Unless they completely reworked junctions into something completely different on Vista, that's incorrect. Junctions are basically soft symlinks.

Hard Links and Junctions

They do already. It's called the "Upgrade Edtition" which, contrary to popular belief *CAN* be used to perform a clean install of the OS, rather than requiring an older version to be installed first.

As can be seen on Microsoft's own website, the upgrade editions are all discounted $100 from the price of the full (new license) version.

Those "features" that you're talking about can be e.g. IPv6 support, or the next official IP protocol.

XP already supports IPv6. From this page:
"Support for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), a new suite of standard protocols for the Network layer of the Internet, is built into the latest versions of Microsoft Windows, which include Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Windows XP with Service Pack 1, Windows XP Embedded SP1, and Windows CE .NET."

Do you REALLY foresee another "official IP Protocol" coming any time in the next decade? IPv6 has barely has a foot hold around the world and you are already worried about the next version/implementation?

If Ms supplied something that detected/removed/protected against up&down, (free, with no 'Genuine Advantage / Validation' bs), then I'm sure pretty soon all the media would link to that & the sheeple would rush to download & install... How about it, Redmond?

They do.

Malicious Software Removal Tool
Download Link
Technical Details

You'll note said tool does not require any validation to download, anyone can download it regardless of the legality of their copy of Windows; no validation or genuine advantage required, period.

This tool is also regularly distributed via Automatic Updates/Windows Updates to help clean out any infections that computers that use these services may have contracted, either because they weren't patched, or some other mechanism that isn't due to a software vuln (e.g. USB Key Transmission).

The only thing that could be improved upon is combining the two together, but there are some people who have legitimate reasons for wanting to do one and not the other (generally, detect and remove but not necessarily patch). They are few and far between, but they do exist. And really, if you can be capable of going to a website and manually download a removal tool, you should also be able to enable AU or manually periodically go to WU/MU.

In summary: They have published the fix, free, and a removal tool, also free. Learn what you are talking about, everything you just said is already done.

If Ms supplied something that detected/removed/protected against up&down, (free, with no 'Genuine Advantage / Validation' bs), then I'm sure pretty soon all the media would link to that & the sheeple would rush to download & install... How about it, Redmond?

They do.

Malicious Software Removal Tool
Download Link
Technical Details

You'll note said tool does not require any validation to download, anyone can download it regardless of the legality of their copy of Windows; no validation or genuine advantage required, period.

This tool is also regularly distributed via Automatic Updates/Windows Updates to help clean out any infections that computers that use these services may have contracted, either because they weren't patched, or some other mechanism that isn't due to a software vuln (e.g. USB Key Transmission).

The only thing that could be improved upon is combining the two together, but there are some people who have legitimate reasons for wanting to do one and not the other (generally, detect and remove but not necessarily patch). They are few and far between, but they do exist. And really, if you can be capable of going to a website and manually download a removal tool, you should also be able to enable AU or manually periodically go to WU/MU.

In summary: They have published the fix, free, and a removal tool, also free. Learn what you are talking about, everything you just said is already done.

If Ms supplied something that detected/removed/protected against up&down, (free, with no 'Genuine Advantage / Validation' bs), then I'm sure pretty soon all the media would link to that & the sheeple would rush to download & install... How about it, Redmond?

They do.

Malicious Software Removal Tool
Download Link
Technical Details

You'll note said tool does not require any validation to download, anyone can download it regardless of the legality of their copy of Windows; no validation or genuine advantage required, period.

This tool is also regularly distributed via Automatic Updates/Windows Updates to help clean out any infections that computers that use these services may have contracted, either because they weren't patched, or some other mechanism that isn't due to a software vuln (e.g. USB Key Transmission).

The only thing that could be improved upon is combining the two together, but there are some people who have legitimate reasons for wanting to do one and not the other (generally, detect and remove but not necessarily patch). They are few and far between, but they do exist. And really, if you can be capable of going to a website and manually download a removal tool, you should also be able to enable AU or manually periodically go to WU/MU.

In summary: They have published the fix, free, and a removal tool, also free. Learn what you are talking about, everything you just said is already done.

And yes it is officially supported, on the other hand Moonlight, the OSS Slilverlight implementation which is the only way to get it to work on Linux really has no backing from MS

No backing from Microsoft? You sure about that? I would call releasing their video codecs for use by Moonlight and publishing a covenant not to sue Moonlight users to be pretty far from "no backing".

Granted, this is Microsoft's version of playing nice so of course the whole covenant issue is really just a wedge to drive portions of the OSS community against each other, but I think it's difficult to assert that Adobe is being more open than Microsoft here.

When it comes down to it, both companies are going to be only as open as absolutely necessary to help promote their format. Of course hopefully SVG and HTML5 features like <video> and <canvas> tags etc. will make the whole point moot if all the non-IE browsers can gain critical mass to force Microsoft into supporting them. Then we'll see both companies in the position Sun is now with Java: wishing they had truly opened up their formats before it was 10 years too late.

And Bill G is no longer at Microsoft.

Funny, no one seems to have told Microsoft, who still seem to think that William H. Gates III is their Chairman.

Silverlight FAQ

Silverlight supports what users ask it to support.

Oh, and a link to one of the formats it supports

WMV file format

pwnd

And if you found a startup company, Microsoft will happily give you a free MSDN Premium subscription, with production licenses of the server products, provided you meet a few criteria (i.e. if you're an outsourcing firm, piss off. If you earn more than $1M per year, piss off. If you have a large corporate owner, piss off) and agree to pay an exit fee at the end of the program.

Visual Studio Express is free (as in beer) by design. Of course, it is a Microsoft product, so you have to be willing to contaminate your workstation with binaries from the Evul Kingdom.

And a 240 day license of the various MS server products is free as well.

Communicator can be logged at the server level with the right configuration. It is a supported feature of the server.

I'd love to replace Communicator with FOSS, but Communicator does SSO, file transfer, AD integration and Outlook integration so that it can update your status according to your calendar. It even does a Mobile and Web client, though I haven't tried those. So far I haven't found anything FOSS that can match that.

Once a month or so I consider quitting my job and writing the code to do that.

It might be interesting to note that Windows XP Professional mainstream support will be retired in the US in one week.

It might be interesting to note that Windows XP Professional mainstream support will be retired in the US in one week.

If Ms supplied something that detected/removed/protected against up&down, (free, with no 'Genuine Advantage / Validation' bs), then I'm sure pretty soon all the media would link to that & the sheeple would rush to download & install... How about it, Redmond?

The virus does it's best to block attempts at removal as you'd expect, but still, you seem to be referring to something along these lines with specific instructions on detection and removal from M$, or perhaps even the Windows Live safety scanner, which despite it's crappy sounding name apparently detects and removes it.

Yes I know this is /. and bashing the evil corporation usually results in "sheeple" modding you up, but did you really think M$ wouldn't have thought about supplying people with the means to remove the virus? Did you even check before hitting submit?

If he is using Win95, M$ stopped supporting that years ago; I'm pretty sure there are no Windows updates for that OS on their site anymore.

Haven't looked around their site much, have you? There are still updates for Windows 3.1, so I think the 65 or so updates for Windows 95 will be around for a bit.

And even if they're not, I have them all downloaded....

No...the updates are definitely there. There just aren't any new ones.

If he is using Win95, M$ stopped supporting that years ago; I'm pretty sure there are no Windows updates for that OS on their site anymore.

Haven't looked around their site much, have you? There are still updates for Windows 3.1, so I think the 65 or so updates for Windows 95 will be around for a bit.

And even if they're not, I have them all downloaded....

No...the updates are definitely there. There just aren't any new ones.

4: Folks around Linux still cannot understand that in the software world, choice while good, breeds confusion. On this very point Bill Gates stated it bluntly while referring to UNIX.

And how many choices does Microsoft offer with Vista? Though not as many as there are Linux distros and other Unices MS has 4 versions of Vista.

Who gained out of this confusion? Microsoft.

The thing about choices is that a person can choose what they want. Of course many Windows users wouldn't know how to choice a Linux distro.

Falcon

'See "Stirling" in action'

I can't cause I don't have Silverlight installed and am using Chrome, so I most probably don't need it ..

Win95 == no USB support.

I had USB devices working fine in Win95. Maybe you should update your copy of Windows 95? Updates are still available on http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ for it.

well supported

I'd say RDP has more support than X11. You can get an RDP client on just about any platform--even *unix.

The fact that X11 lets you run over a network does not outweigh the fact it basically sucks at everything else.

But again, the fact a phone runs X11 doesn't matter as long as the phone provides a standard interface to develop against.

take the code compile it yourself

From the Windows build instructions: "Prerequisite software: [...] Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Pro (8.0) or later. Visual Studio Express won't work. Visual Studio 2005/2008 Pro Trial will work." But I don't see who would want to spend $637.49 just to unbrand Chrome once the 90-day trial runs out. One could buy a Mac Mini and use the Mac build instructions for less than that.

One could say that a feature that mysteriously turns itself on and off is worse than a feature that simply doesn't work. At least when it doesn't work, it predictably doesn't work. Human beings value predictability.

Consistency in an operating is indeed a high priority, but the designers at Microsoft think they know better and suggest "Because Windows adapts to how you use your computer, the menu items you use most will be automatically displayed in the future. So the next time you open the menu, you might not need to expand it."

Nobody wants floppy drives to spin up as soon as a disk is inserted. That just makes them think they've been attacked by a computer virus. It'd all just be a lot of work for a feature nobody wants.

If only they had remembered this lesson. Some years later they considered it vastly different to spin up a CD upon insertion. Then they figured they'd not only do that, but also trust the media enough to blindly start executing code from it.

I'm now actually confused. I reread the MS-PL and now I'm not clear if it is closer to GPL or BSD.

It is this line:

(D) If you distribute any portion of the software in source code form, you may do so only under this license by including a complete copy of this license with your distribution. If you distribute any portion of the software in compiled or object code form, you may only do so under a license that complies with this license.

I'm confused with. Does that mean that if you use my library or incorporate my code, your whole codebase becomes MS-PL'd?

Now I'm confused... ah well.

1) They want to use Unix apps

Which could be accomplished by expanding Cygwin's compatibility too...

Cygwin is so-so. Used to be better actually. For that matter Windows Services for Unix by Microsoft is so-so. Neither is remotely close though to really getting most Unix apps to run.

2) They want an easier to maintain system when things go wrong

Easier in what way? A copy of Norton Ghost (or another backup solution) and a monthly/weekly backup will make my system "easy" to fix in the event of catastrophic h/d failure or data corruption problem... anything else is just "go replace the failed component" or "well shit, time to reinstall the OS" anyways.

Not my experience at all. I've made use of /dev /proc many times to diagnose and/or bypass hardware problems. It is fantastic to be able to pass messages directly to hardware, for example force a bus to init a drive it doesn't see.

As far as software and OS, reinstall is usually out of the question. A desktop + all the apps takes about 100 hours to configure the right way.

4)They want scripting heavily integrated with apps and the system

Again, what sort of scripting? "Integrated scripting" isn't half as important as the purpose you want each individual script to accomplish.

Integrated is not with each other but with apps and the OS. Frequently scripts need to act between multiple apps. Applescript allows you to do this on Mac, but it is limited. There really is no substitution for Unix apps having good command line controls and universal scripting languages.

5)They want to distribute their desktop i.e. network transparency

I think we've gone beyond the bounds of the average home user, or the average corporate network user, or even the average developer at this point.

Most companies that switched to Linux back in 2000 did so for this reason. End users may not know the term "Network transparency" but they love the ability to pop on any machine in the corporation and have it act the same. They love being able to pop windows to other users "Jay you need to fill these 3 lines out then pass it back to me".

Absolutely that requires their IT guys to set it up. In terms of home users, network transparency is essentially what all the TV interface stuff is about. Also VPN....

You tell that to all the millions of users who are struggling at this moment with the Conficker Worm which does not affect even one single solitary computer with OSX loaded into it, even a Hackintosh not made by Apple.

I honestly don't know of a single Apple user that uses OS X because it cannot be infected by the majority of viruses out there, I know quite a lot too. I know of a few that will mention that as a reason to use OS X, but wasn't the primary motivator for themselves.

So, I'm pretty fine with telling than to the millions of users out there, I'm also fine telling them to leave on automatic updates, which will download and execute the malicious software removal tool automatically to remove the worm.

Nobody has ever said that the common components used by Apple as well as by everybody else cannot fail or do not fail.

Uhm, the thermal paste issue is definitely Apple's fault. Mass logicboard failures are due to improper QA testing, considering the motherboards are built by Apple. But way to go on ignoring all the software faults in the OS I mentioned too, along with the driver issues.

Even so, organizations like Consumer Reports give Apple Computers the highest possible grades for overall quality and reliability.

I really couldn't care less what some unregulated American company says with their evaluations. I'm far more interested in what the EU evaluations which have strict guidelines in evaluations and public scrutinization against their data. What has been mentioned about Apple in the EU has not been very positive.

Apple Computers the highest possible grades for overall quality and reliability.

Considering the simple issues like too much thermal paste - which is still an issue and you consider that highest grade of quality and reliability, I'm going to have to take a step back now and laugh.

Well good for you that YOU, a self-styled computer god, have determined that for yourself. Fortunately, more credible organizations and more reliable reviewers have come to the opposite conclusion that you have come to.

It's also true that more credible organizations and more reliable reviewers have to come to the same conclusion that I have.

Also, the fact that many people are willing to pay extra for quality, are keeping up Apple's profits at levels the other computer makers only dream about.

This isn't really relevant to the discussion of how it's a superior product, Apple is a popular brand name, people will buy brand names even if they're absolutely crap (ie: Sony).

Well then, here is 2k3 Pro for $89.99. And I don't see anything about education pricing. Again, this is just the first link I noticed, if one were to spend more than 3 seconds looking it can be found for even cheaper I'm sure. I got mine when a company went out of business. They had nice Office 2K pro edition still in the retail packages that didn't get deployed before the company went tits up. The boss bought a lot of their office machines(a whole trailer full IIRC) and he let me go through the software and have it at the auction price. I paid a whole $50 for mine.

But as I said, it really isn't hard to find Office at an affordable price, especially if you don't mind being a version behind. And since they have a compatibility pack that will let you open 2k7 in 2k or later, that really isn't a big deal. But if one were to spend more than the combined 6 seconds I did I'm sure they could find it cheaper, especially if they didn't need all the bells and whistles of Pro. But in all my years of dealing with SOHO and SMBs I don't think I've ever heard of anyone actually paying $400 for Office. Like I said a few minutes on the net and you can find it for a lot less.

I personally think MSFT advertises the price that high to get businesses to go ahead and buy site licenses or software assurance. It is a lot easier to sell a business on it if you can show them some crazy price if they had to buy retail. Kinda like how even on MSDN there are articles telling you to just buy the upgrade instead of the full version of Vista. Everyone including MSFT knows about it but they don't care, because retail boxed versions of Vista simply isn't where their bread is buttered. But if you want to believe that people are actually paying $400 a pop for Office go right ahead. But I'm telling you that if it DID actually cost $400 then OO.o would gain a lot bigger foothold than it has now. It simply isn't in MSFT's best interest to sell it at that price, not when they can sell so many more at the $100 price range and keep people and businesses buying Office year after year.

Assuming they aren't prepared to get MS Office the torrent way (which works beautifully if you know how I might add), why didn't you recommend the It's Not Stealing promotion Microsoft likes to run which offers 2007 Ultimate for a relatively low price to students at least?

http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/itsnotcheating/default.aspx

(fyi. not a shrill, but it is a nice offer and 2007 is a very nice package in any case).

I use xls on both Excel and Open Office and they are mostly compatable. If you are one of those accounting types with 100000 lines in an excel file then you you should stick with excel.

Open Office is a replacement for M$ office for 95% of the use cases. Still the proprietary formats of M$ Office made it difficult to port. Since those standards are now published I think cross program support will improve.

Naturally Microsoft, being a self-described good corporate citizen and having no further profit motive for doing otherwise, will proceed to do the right thing and donate all the Encarta articles and images to the commons. Won't they? Won't they?