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The Only Way Microsoft Can Die is by Suicide
Bitseeker writes "Robert X. Cringley's latest article is online. He opens with: 'When I wrote last week about my conclusion that the legal system -- any legal system -- is unequipped to change Microsoft's monopolistic behavior, I had no idea that within 24 hours, Sun Microsystem would be throwing in the towel, trading its so-called principles for $1.95 billion in cash. So I guess I was right. Only now, a few thousand readers out there expect me to blithely produce an answer to the problem of what to do to bring Microsoft into the civilized world. Well, I say it can't be done.'"
The thing is if Longhorn isn't secure out of the box they will be. That means no open services binding to interfaces other than 127.0.0.1. Whilst this won't kill them outright people are now starting to learn just how fundamental some of the problems with windows are and just how futile it is to try and keep a system up to date on a dial up modem.
Based on the way SP2 for XP is looking they may finally be learning this lesson, but if they don't it may not be a question of running out of money and more a question of running out of customers (one leads to the other I know but they have a LOT of money to spare even without customers)
Normal people worry me!
One thing you have to admit, MSFT is both good at playing catchup and has enough resources to play catchup after it has missed the boat. There are plenty of examples:
1. MSFT ignoring TCP IP, saying it is inferior to NetBIOS as well as charging a small fortune for a minimal add-on IP Stack ported from BSD. That was only 10 years ago. They caught up on this one
2. Same with browsers - IE 3.0 was nothing but mosaic repackaged. It took them less then 2 years to catch up.
3. Mail clients - I still remember the days when Pegasus and Eudora were the de-facto corporate standards as far as Email on windows is concerned. 3 years to get from 0% market share to 90%+ market share.
4. Microsoft ignoring wireless, thin clients, etc.
In every one of these cases they caught up before the rest of the market could do anything about them.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
It is my theory that capitalism, or more precisely free markets, lead to monopolies and oligopolies. As long as you keep introducing good products, have good marketing, have a lot of capital, keep trying hard, and/or have good employees, you will aways dominate. Companies like Microsoft, IBM, ExxonMobil, BP, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, and others, will always dominate.
A lot of people in the tech industry, and in particular on Slashdot, are very anti-Microsoft. But the fact of the matter is that Microsoft has not done anything that other companies don't do on a regular basis. If anything, Microsoft is one of the better companies relative to its size (companies like Intel and IBM are far worse). If you think Microsoft is bad, you know nothing about Wal-Mart, ExonMobil, and others. A company like Walmart, for example, has far more power and is more monopolistic than Microsoft ever was. What you refer to as Microsoft's monopolistic behaviour is a total joke compared to the clout Wal-mart has over suppliers and consumers.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Well, I'm probably much closer to "average consumer" or general public than a lot of posters here are... I know about this stuff because I have an interest in computer and tech, but I'm not really involved in it...
Then again, there have been such attempts made on various scales, yet on the whole, apathy seems to be the victor.
Is it really apathy? You need to find a way to make ordinary people understand why it matters what they run on their PC at home to check their email and surf the web, when they have to take their kids to the Dr, remember to pick up dog food on the way home, call their mother to talk about getting the family together for the weekend, pay bills... and so on and so on.
I really would love to use Linux on my home PC, and I did my best to make myself a dual boot system but I couldn't get it running on my own. There are a lot of programs I have to have that are only on Windows, so Windows it was. But I work my butt off and don't really have time to devote hours learning a new operating system, when I already know my way around Windows, and on the list of Important Things Demanding Attention in my life, it's a pretty low priority. I used Mandrake on my ex-boyfriend's computer when I was staying with him, but he was always around to fix it when something went wrong. When Windows goes nuts, I can usually manage to get things working again on my own, at least.
The main obstacles to Linux, or any alternative OS, in my opinion are making it easy to use and configure right out of the box for someone with little to know computer knowledge, like me, and not only educating people about the alternatives to the monopoly, but why they should care when there are so many other important things to worry about.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
"I think that the public needs to be more educated about the alternatives to the monopoly which controls the machines all around us"
I think there needs to be a much stronger effort by these alternatives to effectively replace Microsoft. It's not like I can just switch to Linux and automatically be happy.
"Derp de derp."
I agree but disagree.
Imagine limiting the model. Impose the tax-levy at market share of 70% or greater. That would encourage companies to get big, but not get too big. That is, it would create a very strong incentive to not kill off too much competition.
But the problem there is that microsoft is engaged in many markets and some products that attain monopoly in their markets are given away for free... So in the case of Netscape, how would the government applied such a tax-levy?
Perhaps rather than a tax, perhaps the revocation of all patents on said companies products in the given market.
So in the event of IE's market monopoly, all patents obtained by MS related to IE's functionality would be revoked, allowing for new competition to step in and compete without having to worry about IP infringement.
But there is no silver bullet here unfortunately.
I think Microsoft already saw the writing on the wall, they are moving towards home appliances and entertainment. They are moving into music, video and games. HDTV will have Microsoft media format for recordings, Music will be some DRM'ed version, and video games are out in the form of the Xbox. There already into PDA's, Phones, and Tivo clones. Microsoft will be around in all forms of entertainment. The OS market is dead, its time to move towards the bigger, larger honey pots.
As for software, besides the XP OS so I can run video games, all most applications are open source or free. Mozilla, Thunderbird, putty, Winamp (free version), Open office, cygwin, opengaim, windows player classic. iTunes, PowerDVD and Nero are pay, but they could move to Linux easily enough.
Besides free software for PC, everything else costs for most entertainment. Xbox games, HDTV DVDs, DRM'ed CDs, whatever. Microsoft will be a monopoly in other markets.
As if it hasn't been tried a few thousand times? Every single time, Microsoft has either bought the company in question and either integrated it or disbanded it, or created enough vaporware and FUD to shut it down. Remember Go, anyone? Where do you think Visio, Excel and Exchange comes from? Developed in-house? Ha! One of the guys behind Exchange even came over and tried to "ease our transition" when Bill'n'Steve bought us [1] out. You can not out-innovate someone who buys and steals innovations for a living and has forty billion dollars to play with. It can not be done, not on the same playing field. You will have to either out-gun them (maybe IBM could, if they had a visionary to push them, which they don't) or take the fight elsewhere and play by different rules as OSS is doing.
I think Bill Gates himself has proven that it only takes someone in a garage with a damn good idea...
Jobs and Wozniak proved that. Bill never worked out of a garage, his parents were a bit too wealthy for that kind of rough start. He was speeding his Porsche down in Albuquerque from day one.
Mod me down if you wish, just an honest opinion from someone sick of hearing about Microsoft's monopoly.
Well, I'm sick of living it. And I have been for close to ten years now. Do some research and you'll know why you're hearing about it. God knows there's enough books and websites written by the ones who have gotten their de-programming and gotten out. Start with Marlin Eller and go from there.
[1] Sendit, later known as Microsoft Mobile Internet Business Group and now known as NOTHING since they killed it off, apparently just for fun. Forty billion dollars allows you to have fun like that. Laugh, dammit!
Money for nothing, pix for free
Wow, those are very strong and sobering points. Maybe software and PCs/Networks are beginning to become mainstream. Just like mechanics in the early 1900s or the steel makers of the 1800s, where are they now? Well, the new ones at least(think 25 years establishment or less) aren't billionares, are they? Software and the tools that write software(think dumbed down software that writes the whole application for you with fairly efficient code) are the death of easy originality. Think about cars. As they become more and more mass produced, they quality goes down.
Cars are a good example. For example I just bought a 2003 Mustang Cobra and am having problems where as others with more limited production, such as a 1995 for instance, were built with more precision(read:more attention), but cost less and have less problems?!?!.
What I see here is the beginning of the destruction of capitolism/economics/life(as we know it). Think this way... If more and more people and corps come online with the tools to make an application that makes an instant internationally accessable website then all we will see is less and less of an acutal product and more of a battle of whose the best at lying and making the most apealing ads. We all hear about this or that company claiming to focus on the customer. I'm sorry to say, CUSTOMER SERVICE IS DEAD. It's all an ad campain. Like AT&T Wireless or Time Warner Cable. I deal with many vendors everyday with my work and the average rate of satisfaction from the service received is less than 10%. Both of the above companies' ranked the #1 and #2 spot on worst expiriences with getting customer service after the sale I have had.
When was the last time you had service. What about at a chain owned business such as a fast food establishment? It's going downhill and I'm expecting the worst soon.
Now bear in mind that (a) there are challenges from all sides coming at Microsoft (they have failed to gain much of a foothold in markets outside their core products of Windows and Office, both core markets now under heavy attack from Free alternatives) and (b) the price of MSFT has almost halved over the past 5 years (in fact, it was almost touching $100 a share in Feb 2000) and you might just think it's not all rosy in the MSFT garden. So much so that co-founder Paul Allen sold all his MSFT stock and got out whilst the going was good. This is also why MS decided last year to pay a dividend on their stock for the first time - they have to prevent institutional investors from jumping ship. The stock setup is their one (big) weakness.
"So is there anything we can do to help?"
Make sure your employer pays in full for all the microsoft software they use, and book an hour on the timesheet to "reading EULAs" each time you install software on a new machine.
Just suggestions...
There is however a problem. The problem is that IBM existed in a different world then MS does now. IBM technology was a small world populated by the techs. MS however exist in a world in wich IT is now used mostly by non-techs. These people are far less prepared to switch from MS to Linux as before the techs switched from Mainframes to DOS.
So what can happen?
Security
One is security. So far all the security problems have been mild. Nothing really major happened. People are not going to switch because of a few virusses (I am talking the non-techs here) or because they loose a little bit of data. Just ask youreselve how many cars have been produced that were so faulty that they killed people and what happened to the companies that produced those cars? Are those companies still around their cars still selling? Right. Apathy. People are stupid, lazy, shortsighted, greedy and gullible.
A major worm that really wipes out a large percentage of windows machine would be required for a shift to take place. Is this likely? Well so far it hasn't happened. None of the worms are really destructive enough.
MS missing the boat
This is mentioned in the article and I think it is wishfull thinking. MS has missed every damn boat out there. So far without result. People do without or pay extra or pay others. Just look at tcp/ip, browsers, png support in browsers, games (once Apple was the PC with games), and many many others.
Competition
Now we are talking. Linux itself isn't really competition as linux is not competiting. If Linux is used by 1 person then it still is a 100% success.
But there are others willing to use Linux as the base from wich to launch their own offensive.
I don't think companies like IBM or Sun or HP are any real threath. They had their change and goofed. But look to the east and you will see one huge evil empire who has everything to loose by MS being dominant and nothing to gain. China may for a lot of reasons become the bastion of freedom for the west ruled by DMCA/RIAA/MPAA/MS. People always talk about the richness off MS but forget that 50billion is peanuts to goverments. America is only so corrupt because its leaders are so cheaply bought. Just look at the donations given and the profits of the companies making the donations.
China however has a rememedy for that. A bullet paid for by the relatives.
Red flag linux run on a dragon chips would be a very nice way for china to first gain independence at home and second be a nice export article to those willing to break free from Longhorn/Blackcomb or whatever.
I think this is the only real threat to MS. A country wich cannot be bought, threatned or outsold. An asian pact would also break the MS office version deadlock. Want to trade in the east? You will comply with their standards or you will not trade.
Is any of this likely to happen?
Apart from the far east revolt I doubt that anything will change soon. We live in a world where only a tiny percentage of people even can be bothered to vote. Expecting those people to lead a revolt against a company is to much.
Of course that is no excuse for those of us who know better.
This article written on Linux
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Well, as Cringley pointed out, things do eventually change. Microsoft will fall, eventually, and probably of its own accord. (Longhorn looks like a good start...)
And an observation that is not a troll, but is likely to get me modded down for the first time anyway: by 1983, I was tired of hearing people say that this was the year that *nix would start to take over. It's taken me many years to become a believer, and I have learned patience along the way.
Microsoft is positioning itself to battle linux. To do so, they cross license IP with Sun for Solaris innards with its excellent scaleability and enterprise class functionality. This means a new class Operating system derived from Solaris and Windows with quite possibly a small piece of the pie to SCO.
Meanwhile, Sun is going to migrate away from Sparc. They simply cannot compete in the proprietary CPU market. Look for them to adopt and have a hand in developing AMD processors with multi-core CPUs that run the new hybrid OS. Then Sun will market the server, workstation, Desktop based systems. Microsoft will get a cut of the hardware business as Sun gets a cut of the software business. Sco get residual license fees, and Linux gets another 10 years to catch up.
My 13yo duaghter has "computer classes" at her Middle School. Are they teaching her programming? No. Are they teaching her basic principles of technology? No.
They're teaching her Microsoft PowerPoint and FrontPage.
I'm not anti-Microsoft; in fact, their software often offers features not found in FOSS applications. PowerPoint is not evil; what's evil is how PowerPoint is used to turn complex ideas into empty summaries.
Yet I find it disquieting that the schools are teaching kids with proprietary software (probably donated) to make business presentations. Most kids don't have a resource at home who can etach them about programming and alternative software. It's not my kids I worry about so much as the corporate monoculture that they're going to live in, populated by ignorant cogs created by an assembly-line school system.
It looks like my middle daughter will follow her 15yo sister into the world of homeschooling. But what about other people's kids? In my mind, Microsoft is no better than a drug peddler, creating a dependancy in youth that leads to addiction in adulthood.
Cringley is right about one thing -- for the most part, the people who care about FOSS are those who know how to use a compiler. And the advocates of FOSS still lack the attention to users -- non-compilers -- that is required to create a valid alternative to Microsoft.
One thing I've learned from being on the frontlines of social activism -- being "right" means nothing. The success of any revolution depends on the ability to engage the passions of the common folk who do not understand (or care to understand) the issues. Geeks can look down their noses at the unwashed masses, but unless you can attract the interest of common folk, your revolution is doomed, and Microsoft wins.
All about me
It seems to me that Microsoft, after many years of poor performance and an anti-trust conviction and a multimillion dollar fine in Euroland, may already be dying. Doesn't anyone with more than a couple of years of computing experience already hate them? I've been working with computers for 25 years and I started using Linux when it finally had a reasonable set of desktop applications and resolved some of the hardware compatability issues. Many US companies are dying --but it's from the inside so many don't see the decay until it far along. Can a company really survive in an environment where the potential customer base hates them, when they write crappy code that any 14 year-old can break into, and their business practices send even normally sedate government bureaucrats into a frenzy? Do they really have that much money? I'll bet the executives are clueless about what's really happening on the shop floors too --another common problem in companies these days.
If you want more people to use Linux, the best tool by far will be to make it usable by the general public, as easy and understandable as Windows is.
I will not be modded up for this, becuase it's truth. Truth, people actively ignore.
It burns me up every time someone claims that what is written on the chains holding Linux down has anything to do with ease of use.
Have we forgotten computing history? Are we that afriad of what needs to be done, we blatantly walk straight into a wall head first with ignorance?
Ease of use, has never to this day played a role in the popularity and market dominance of a computer operating system. Or, VCR, automobile, cell phone or any other interactive device.
Maybe, the problem is, most people here used to be Macintosh haters just three or so years ago. Oh, you heard about how easy the Mac was, so easy infact trolls still try to make a wise crack about the one-button mouse. It's always been a wonder to the Mac community, how Microsoft managed to surpass Apple hiding behind the command prompt. While we all have our business and economics degrees that give us a lame authority to try to define Apples blunders, the fact remains many geeks criticized Mac users because THERE WASN'T A COMMAND LINE!
Now, we point at the crippled Windows command line interface, and cry about Linux's ease of use!
Linux's ease of use is irrelevant. I don't care how many people scream otherwise. Linux has so many other qualities that if we focus on them, we will prevail. Who here started using Linux becuase it was "easy to use"? Noone. Who here started using Linux becuase of the liberty entailed in Open Source, the efficiency of Open Source, the control? I wonder if there is a high percentage of Linux users driving cars with manual transmissions... I do! I don't find it a coincedence either! When I was concerned with ease of use, I used a Macintosh. To this day, when ease of use is heavily on my mind, I recommend a Macintosh.
Microsoft displayed that market control can be easily acheived without ease of use. Or senseable use for that matter, they still haven't mastered cut and paste. But, we don't like how they did it. So we think we are better than they are, and we should come out on top if we don't stoop to their level. That's just plain fantasy, it never pans out in the end. There's a reality here, the man willing to kick the other in the balls will always be left standing. If you want to defeat such a person, you had better drop some morals otherwise you'll be hunched over in agony.
We can do this without zealotry, blind advocacy... but we can't do it if we constantly try to find a cause to the problem, we feel most comfortable with. Linux doesn't lack 95% of the market becuase it is hard to use. Linux lacks 95% of the market becuase it's users are hunched over on the side-walk thinking they are in pain becuase their shoes weren't tied right.
It's a matter of choice. I bought a new 2002 Saturn SL. I have had ZERO problems and consistantly get 30+mpg in town and 40+mpg on the hiway. I deliberately chose quality over glitz, even though I feel the Saturn looks neater than the Mustang. So it is with software. Rather than choosing a flashy, highly promoted OS I selected Linux. My reward is high usability, stability and security.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I, too, have set up a lot of friends (former WinXX users all) and I go with
/etc/host file.
1) Mandrake
2) A listing of ad servers in the
Everything else is either included or not needed.
It costs them nothing and I donate my time. What are friends for if not that?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Actually, the biggest steel maker in the US is now Nucor, which is a relative newcomer. The old established steel companies missed the minimill boom (a disruptive technology) and have been struggling with huge pension costs from old labor agreements.
Actually, that depends on range - at close range a knife or sword-weilding opponent can carve you up before you have time to draw and fire a handgun, and long guns are awkward at point-blank range.
And it's really no different than the advantage of the bow over the sword, it's just easier to gain basic competence with a firearm.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I work in a Pro Audio store, and I'm a script level nerd. I work on Macs, X and 9. I work on PCs with windows. In 2000 I installed a small redhat server that shared 20 gigs of space, and also acted as a firewall and dhcp server.
.deb work in yellowdog? Does emerge work in Fedora? Do you realize how few people can even comprehend why there's a difference, let alone what the differences are?
I have installed and used: Slackware, Redhat, Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo, and unsuccessfully tried to install yellowdog on an old (and apparently unsupported) Mac clone.
This is the reason I have no problem in saying that the ease of use in Linux is absolutely the reason it isn't popular. People are cheap, and they love free anything, and they'll deal with a lot of headache to save money. A free Linux desktop that was easier to use than windows would be more popular than windows. But there isn't one.
Here's the bottom line:
1. You won't win the desktop until you have a solid GUI platform where a completely encapsulated installer requires ONE COMMAND to begin the install process.
2. You won't win the desktop until you have POLISHED and COMPLETE business applications. QuickBooks, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and the like have absolutely no equal in Linux.
3. For the above to happen, there need to be standards in Linux. It's really that simple. Windows may be bad, but it's consistent. I can write an application that will work in Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP. Will a
If you make Linux better than windows and keep it free, it will become more popular. Just remember that 95% of your audience doesn't give a shit about games, or how fast pieces of backend code work, or how revolutionary it will be for them to have a limitlessly configurable desktop. They're at work. They want to sell things, communicate with their customers, keep track of their finances, stay organized, and then turn the thing off and go home.
Okay, I made my subject something that would draw people into the comment. Flame me if you wish. Cringly has written a well thought out, thourough article on the state of Microsoft today. I hope he is wrong but suspect that he may be right.
Microsoft is a business, it isn't run by a bunch of geeks, it is run buy a bunch of geeky businessmen who plan for the future. Business is war and cash reserves are ammunition. Microsoft is laying plans for war against all, including open source. It is good business practice.
Would Microsoft be justified in giving away free software to beat open source? Sure, they would be meeting their competition head-on. Even if everything else were equal, Microsoft would probably win because of their PR budget and their name recognition. Open Soure can't win on price alone. Open Source still has to compte in other areas as well. Areas like quality, security, ease of use, availability.
Can Open Souce beat Microsft? Maybe, maybe not. North Vietnam beat the US and that was a David vs. Goliath battle. David beat Goliath. Yes, it can be done. But the battle isn't on cost alone. It is a hearts and minds kind of battle and on that front I'm afraid that Open Source doesn't have much of a market share (yet).
I'm not trying to say that all of this is right or as it should be but I am saying that this is the way that it is. At least today.
I am concerned from a global level that Microsoft has too much power. With so much of the software market they are in a position to dictate how, where, when, and why computers are used.
I don't think this is a good thing and I think that in a sense it constitutes a global security threat. If computing becomes a Microsoft oriented mono-culture, vunerabilities in the software can (and probably will be) exploited by governments, crime syndicates, and even individuals. I'm not talking about worms and viruses here, I'm talking about people seriously interested in destroying an entities economic existance.
If for no other reason, this is a reason enough for people to work against Microsoft's owning the world!
There is another question that needs to be asked. What happens if Microsoft finds that it has reached the limits in software and in order to continue to grow it decided to diversify? We know the kind of machine it is. Perhaps, they would gobble up someone like AMD and go into building computers? Controling the hardware like they control software would allow them to grow into that industry and control it quite quickly. Especially if they made their software run better on their hardware.
Think of what Walmart has done to merchants in many a small town. When Walmart comes to town, family owned merchants (clothiers and hardware stores especially) who have been in the community for generations have simply had to close their doors. The communities don't die but there is less choice and more money leaves the community and enriches a few people in Bentonville AR.
This is the kind of thing that could happen to computing if Microsoft wins. Only it would happen on a global scale. It would mean that Microsoft would be a superpower.
Do we expect most car drivers to change their own oil, perform maintinence, and change their timing belts? Most people don't. I know many people who have never even opened their hood.
In the same way ease of use is vital for unix to gain marketshare. Most of the "computer users" I know haven't the slightest idea what brand their audio or video cards are, much less where to find and install drivers. You should see how some of them freak out when I give them an install CD without an auto-run option.
The main problem with Linux and other OS's has been compatibility for day to day tasks.
Average Joe has only a handful of needs. He wants to surf the net, watch flash animations, some occasional java, send and receive email (and filter spam), open Word and/or Excel documents for viewing, editing, etc. He also wants some media software to listen to mp3's, watch streaming video of any format, and maybe the occasional game.
In the past, MacOS has done all of these things but with a prohibitive cost due to the outrageously priced hardware. Also, Joe knows nobody else with a Mac. So Apple hasn't been a viable option for the majority of users in the past....and as long as it remains the Porsche of hardware/software combos, it'll remain on the fringes.
These days, linux can do all of the things that Joe needs, but Joe still needs local support. Nobody at CompUSA, BestBuy or any local chains has any clue about linux. Joe doesn't know any local linux geeks that'll come fix something for a 6 pack of Duff. He does, however, know a friend/cousin/coworker that will come over and fix his Windows box when it inevitably gets hosed.
You can wave the linux flag all you want, and beat people over the head with it's superiority, but you have to step up when the time comes. You have to push a distro or livecd to your friends and neighbors. You have to be willing to support them when they need help. Once YOU become the local linux guru, people will feel more secure with their choice of an alternative OS. All of this is necessary because no matter how you look at it, Linux is still more complex in many ways than Windows.
I don't know how much government intervention can do. The whole DOJ-Microsoft fiasco was yet another travesty of justice, proving once again that you can buy your own justice in this country. Don't ever forget that Microsoft is 50% marketing, 30% lawfirm and 20% software.
Make no doubt about it, MS can afford to and will make drastic price cuts and offer free upgrades if Linux becomes a serious competitor.
One of the interesting comments in the article was that MS's cash reserves are big enough that they can operate for 5 years with zero revenue. That means they could give away Windows (competeing with open source), probably not run into antitrust problems since they're matching competition prices, and at the same time wipe out any other vendors that are selling at a non-zero price.
Speak before you think
Richard Stallman might not be the person the best temperament to take tea with the Queen of England, but when everything is said and done, he ends up being right, which is probably the real reason so many people here hate his guts. He has been right a along, and the events we are watching just confirm this a bit more every day. And when push comes to shove, the BSD license and all the oh so helpful people that turn out software under it are Microsoft's life insurance, just as they were for Apple.
I know you are supposed to be nice to the BSD people and smile and be friends, but everytime Microsoft grinds another competitor into the dirt (bye-bye Sun) or prevails over another government (bye-bye Europeans, you could have made it count), I remember who handed Microsoft their TCP/IP stack on a platter and who knows what else, I come another step closer to the conclusion that they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Giving Apple a free ride might be seen as an act of charity, but helping Microsoft make money...