I suggest letting them continue to use Windows XP. If it keeps crashing, they'll complain. When they ask you, "Dad, why does it crash?", tell them honestly that it's because some of the software doesn't have 100% compatibility with the OS. "What can we do to fix it?", they'll ask.
As others have pointed out, the truthful answer is to revert to Windows 98. So why even mention Linux?
What if you asked if they wanted to try out a different OS with different games? Then, install a copy of RH or Mandrake and all of the free games that come with it. Then, set up KDE/Gnome with the right age-appropriate menu for each kid. In this way, you will be using Linux's flexibility to give your kids a better user experience.
Also, what about investing in a bigger HD and copying the CDs to the drive so that your 3 y/o doesn't have to swap CDs and rely on autoload. You could even consider installing VMWare (or maybe Wine, if it turns out to work) so that your kids can go into Windows when/if they want.
Over time, each of your kids will develop preferences on which OS they like.
One caveat, however: One of the best ways to learn about computers is when they're not quite working 100%. Let your kids learn from this on their own. Sometimes, it may take a few hundred program crashes to motivate a kid to read a few HOWTOs.
Why do people like money? Because it works. It's a general substitute for quite a lot of things. You clearly think that your $25,000/Year (Canadian) donation is worth bragging about, and therefore you have "spent" $25,000 for the right to brag to others about your generosity. You have also likely purchased a nice warm feeling in your heart as you wake up each morning feeling like you make the world a better place. Don't get me wrong, you probably do make the world a better place. Your money helps you do that.
Take someone like Bill Gates. He's not giving his kids any inheritance when he dies, and he's already donated more money to charitable organizations and research institutions than ANYONE ELSE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. In particular, he's done more for those in need than any communist dictator could fathom.
All of this is courtesy of the magic that happens when self-interest is put to work for the benefit of mankind.
where does battery life fit into this? It's been my major reason for sticking with Palm despite all of the additional power/features/flexibility that is available with the PocketPC platform. Do you think that consumers don't care that a PocketPC device needs to be charged every night? Or is the marketing shifting attention away from this fact and toward the additional functionality?
You're right about what the outcome would be. All Microsoft would need to do would be ask the founder, "would you rather harm our business or sell your company for $100 Million?" This guy is pulling a publicity stunt in order to sell his company to Microsoft. He's not an anti-Microsoft crusader, he's an opportunist.
Yes, the outcome of such a sale would be that Microsoft owned the patent to plug-ins. If Moz & Netscape had to pay Microsoft royalties for use, then suddenly those browsers are non-free. Now, Microsoft can charge money for its browser if it wants. The end result would be that the rest of us would have to start paying to use a plug-in compatible browser.
Suppose every channel were considered a "premium" channel and people had to subscribe to each one individually. Some channels would go up in price, such as MTV, CNN, etc., and some would go down in price: CourtTV, etc.
I think the end result would be that some channels would make enough money to be sustainable. I would expect that most of the less popular channels would only be available in major markets (such as large urban centers with lots of subscribers).
The "packaging" that has existed in Cable TV has allowed some of the smaller networks/channels to exist even though they only have a niche audience. Yes, everybody pays a little extra, but the diversity of programming is pretty high.
I agree with & understand everything you've said about network economics. The point I was making was that there is a difference between Microsoft the alleged monopolist and Microsoft the beneficiary of network economies.
Because of the way network economies work, there will naturally be a tendancy for people to standardize on a particular platform.
Sure, it would be nice if Microsoft used only 100% standardized file formats (*note, this is the one thing that the courts should have done to Microsoft, in my opinion). But the formats are not being arbitrarily changed, and to take the Office example, each version of Office is capabable both of reading and writing any of the earlier Microsoft file format standards.
People save their documents in the newer formats because they're better. Picture a two-pan balance with "better" on one side and "standard" on the other. In the case of Microsoft Office file formats, the consuming public has tipped the balance toward "better".
Your "bad for consumers" examples assume that consumers are idiots. If it's so bad, why do people keep abusing themselves by buying Microsoft products?
1) Consumers will save money:
Bzzt. PDF Viewer is free. Additionally, the format for PDF is published so that people can write both viewers and creators for free.
If it's free, then why does anyone care what Microsoft does. Do we really think that consumers are stupid enough to pay for something when there's a perfectly acceptable free alternative? Microsoft won't sell much of it's product unless it is vastly superior, with all of the free alternatives out there...:) Oh, wait... some people don't consider the 13 hours it took them to get the 'free' version working to constitute a costless endevour.
2) Consumers will have extra money:
Bzzt. Again wrong. You have PDF which is still free versus a feature that will be included in the latest version of Office, which isn't free. Additionally, XDocs competes with the Forms feature in PDF, not with PDF in general.
Ok... you've said it again, there is a great free alternative out there. Consumers must be very naive. Look, most people I know aren't going to pay $800 for the latest version of Office unless it benefits them in some way that they foresee to have value greater than the $800 they're spending.
So, have you looked at the price MS charges for Office? Oh yeah, in addition you'll need to be running Win 2K SP3 or XP in order to run this version of Office.
Yes, see the $800 figure above.
Now on to your straw man. The poster wasn't saying that the fall of PDF was going to destroy the economy. He was stating that the settlement handed to MS will give them carte blanche to wage full scale war against any and all "competitors" in the computer industry.
The thing you're missing, and the thing that most people who are heavily emotionally invested in the debate miss, is that nobody is being forced to use anything. If half of the hours spent on Slashdot arguing about this were dedicated to competing with Microsoft, GNU/Linux would have won at least a year or two ago.
Saying that there's a monopoly is really a way to cloud the issue, becuase most people have been taught since the third grade that monopolies are bad. Anti-trust legislation is intended to protect consumers. It is necessary to show how consumers have been harmed in order to successfully enact anti-trust penalties against a company.
Think about it. If you start a company you look around and see that you have competetors. Your competetors spend every waking moment trying to edge your company out. You do the same. It's called competition. Businesses don't gain anything by running neck-and-neck with the next guy, they need to develop as much advantage as possible. In fact, business is actually a competition to see who can have the fewest all-around competetors, which is why companies always try to expand their offerings and services. This is called competetive differentiation. The more competetive advantage you have, the more money you can make which you can then spend on innovation to further that advantage. Anti-trust law exists because sometimes consumers are harmed when one company becomes too successful. Note, I said sometimes, not always.
Suppose Microsoft had not been very successful but managed to retain some maintenance business based on that original MS-DOS contract. Would the world be a better place? Who knows. Would Linus have had that original MINIX system to tinker with? By saying monopolies are always bad, you are applying no critical thought to the issue.
THAT could lead to further damage to the economy as we see how MS prices things once they get control of the market segment.
So again you make the "consumers are dumb" argument. If Windows + Office cost $2000, I bet a LOT more companies would be using Linux/OpenOffice. It's kind of like the issue of oil vs. alternative fuel. We would all like to be able to use alternatively powered vehicles, but right now Oil is just cheaper b/c there is an existing infrastructure (gas pumps everyhwere). Economically, Microsoft stuff is cheaper than Linux, because of the advantages gained by the fact that everyone uses it. When that changes, Linux will win. One can already see some effects of Linux's success: Microsoft is moving to more and more open standards, IBM has embraced Linux, and there are fewer and fewer reasons not to use linux.
You don't have to grow your hair long and develop a festering hatred for Microsoft in order to believe that Linux will win.
You just have to believe that most people wouldn't mind saving some money and that markets actually work.
That stuff happened in the past, and in the recent decision, the judge decided not to split up Microsoft, and narrowly outlined some areas where the company must now behave differently.
So my question is, do you trust the courts to settle the issue? Or do you think that because Microsoft committed its alleged acts that the company should no longer be able to develop new products?
It's one thing to disagree with the decision, but I think all parties should accept the decision that's been hanced down. In light of that, do you still think that Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to develop new products?
My point is, the playing field is what it is. Now that we're effectively beyond the anti-trust issue, at least judicially. What I'm asking is, which of the following describes your thought process:
1. Harping on the decision (Microsoft should have been broken up and Gates should be in jail).
2. Making an emotional appeal against Microsoft because it's "bad".
3. You're ok with the decision, but you don't trust Microsoft to do the right thing in the future.
With browsers 6 years ago there was very little loyalty, so MSIE could move in before everyone realized just how powerful MS was going to be over Netscape and the other companies involved in browsers.
Uhmmm... have you forgotten that most (normal, non-geek) people still called any web browser "Netscape" until about 1999???
This may be the drop that washes the U.S. recession into a depression.
I hope you're not serious. Can you please explain to us how having two products that do basically the same thing competing for market share is a bad thing?
Before you start worrying too much about how having a competetor to PDF will kill the economy, think about what will actually happen: 1) Consumers will save money because competition will drive the price of the technology down, and 2) those consumers will have a little extra cash in their pockets that they can use to purchase other goods or buy stock, or just save for a rainy day.
I'm sorry, but I don't think Adobe is the cornerstone of the US economy. If their market for electronic documents (aka PDF) shrinks, then they may have to cut a few jobs or sit down and figure out how to make their product more competetive. Meanwhile, the rest of us are saving money and getting a better product.
BTW, have you looked at the price that Adobe charges for Acrobat (not the reader, which is free)? If you want to use PDF you are paying more for it than the copy of Windowz you're running it on.
just a dumb mistake on my part... i intended to have the scores be such that a 7th game was required... all that would be necessary would be to have one of the teams win an extra game before the 6th...
Some economists argue that monopolies are actually an incentive for innovation, because the reward is so great for the company that innovates enough to break the monopoly. In any case, it's a tough question to ask in hindsight, though the answer is pretty simple if you're an apologist for one of Microsoft's competetors.
Your post contains a variety of items that are incorrect, but several stand out:
OEMs were not forced by Microsoft to ship a copy of Windows on every machine. It is you that is naive. Microsoft has an OEM arrangement that gives OEMs an incentive to buy a license for each PC sold. That those OEMs choose to do so is a result of the fact that 90% of their customers ask for Windows to be pre-installed. The alternate choice would have been to pay the standard retail price for all copies of Windows actually sold.
You may view this as some sort of trickery, but it's not. It is a simple business arrangement. That Dell (and others) decided to package and price their products in a way that offends you was their choice. OEMs could have just as easily masked the price of Windows in the configuration of their hardware. Why didn't they? Because evidently some consumers consider the addition of Windows to be a source of added value, or at least not a source of diminished value.
This isn't necessarly my opinion, it is the outcome of a free market. Consumers decide what they want based on the information they have. This is why companies spend money on ads.
Now let's talk about the Software itself:
Windows 95 was at least as stable as MacOS 8.x, and more stable than MacOS 7.x. The fact that more software developers chose to write software for Windows led to the presence of many more software titles for Windows, and this in turn led more consumers to purchase machines capable of running Windows. This was true for most businesses and many households.
IE 2.x and 1.x were garbage. By the time Netscape 3 came out, closely followed by IE3, Microsoft had won the browser war. Since then it has been Netscape playing catch-up, both in terms of browser performance and standards-compliance.
Before Office 95, competetors like WordPerfect produced superior products. But then WordPerfect 7 was released and it was an absolute dog. Lots of people I knew made the switch then, even after they had purchased WordPerfect.
Microsoft has made similar improvements in a variety of markets. I honestly believe that if the people running Apple had been smarter businesspeople, Microsoft would be lucky to be in second place today. Apple hardware and software had such a tremendous advantage for so long, both in terms of performance and usability, that it is an absolute shame that the company wasn't able to thrive competetively as a business. Some people I've known who have worked at Apple have told stories that suggest that it was managed loosely by self-characterized 'geniuses' who preferred glory over profits.
So, in a nutshell, I believe that if you're in business to sell software you have to accomplish a couple of things, and one of the most important is having a product available now that people are willing to pay for. Microsoft has this strategy down pat, which is why it is one of the most successful companies in the history of the world. Sure, you can imagine better software, and you may even be able to build it. But the fact is you didn't and they did. To the winner goes the spoils.
What ever happened to the "let the best software win" viewpoint? If non Microsoft software is "better enough", then it will win. No business would sacrefice profit out of some sentimental attachment to Microsoft products.
Slashdot Mirror
I suggest letting them continue to use Windows XP. If it keeps crashing, they'll complain. When they ask you, "Dad, why does it crash?", tell them honestly that it's because some of the software doesn't have 100% compatibility with the OS. "What can we do to fix it?", they'll ask.
As others have pointed out, the truthful answer is to revert to Windows 98. So why even mention Linux?
What if you asked if they wanted to try out a different OS with different games? Then, install a copy of RH or Mandrake and all of the free games that come with it. Then, set up KDE/Gnome with the right age-appropriate menu for each kid. In this way, you will be using Linux's flexibility to give your kids a better user experience.
Also, what about investing in a bigger HD and copying the CDs to the drive so that your 3 y/o doesn't have to swap CDs and rely on autoload. You could even consider installing VMWare (or maybe Wine, if it turns out to work) so that your kids can go into Windows when/if they want.
Over time, each of your kids will develop preferences on which OS they like.
One caveat, however: One of the best ways to learn about computers is when they're not quite working 100%. Let your kids learn from this on their own. Sometimes, it may take a few hundred program crashes to motivate a kid to read a few HOWTOs.
Why do people like money? Because it works. It's a general substitute for quite a lot of things. You clearly think that your $25,000/Year (Canadian) donation is worth bragging about, and therefore you have "spent" $25,000 for the right to brag to others about your generosity. You have also likely purchased a nice warm feeling in your heart as you wake up each morning feeling like you make the world a better place. Don't get me wrong, you probably do make the world a better place. Your money helps you do that.
Take someone like Bill Gates. He's not giving his kids any inheritance when he dies, and he's already donated more money to charitable organizations and research institutions than ANYONE ELSE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. In particular, he's done more for those in need than any communist dictator could fathom.
All of this is courtesy of the magic that happens when self-interest is put to work for the benefit of mankind.
where does battery life fit into this? It's been my major reason for sticking with Palm despite all of the additional power/features/flexibility that is available with the PocketPC platform. Do you think that consumers don't care that a PocketPC device needs to be charged every night? Or is the marketing shifting attention away from this fact and toward the additional functionality?
in order to show that a monopoly is a problem, one must FIRST show that it harms consumers.
Your approach to this argument seems to be backwards: that Microsoft has a monopoly THEREFORE consumers are being hurt.
to wash your keyboard!
This reminds me of those people who become so attached to their pets that when the pets die they have them freeze-dried.
You should read a book called "The Lever of Riches".
find it here.
You're right about what the outcome would be. All Microsoft would need to do would be ask the founder, "would you rather harm our business or sell your company for $100 Million?" This guy is pulling a publicity stunt in order to sell his company to Microsoft. He's not an anti-Microsoft crusader, he's an opportunist.
Yes, the outcome of such a sale would be that Microsoft owned the patent to plug-ins. If Moz & Netscape had to pay Microsoft royalties for use, then suddenly those browsers are non-free. Now, Microsoft can charge money for its browser if it wants. The end result would be that the rest of us would have to start paying to use a plug-in compatible browser.
You are correct... and you can specify the type of the message recipient in advance if you want to eliminate that overhead, correct?
Suppose every channel were considered a "premium" channel and people had to subscribe to each one individually. Some channels would go up in price, such as MTV, CNN, etc., and some would go down in price: CourtTV, etc.
I think the end result would be that some channels would make enough money to be sustainable. I would expect that most of the less popular channels would only be available in major markets (such as large urban centers with lots of subscribers).
The "packaging" that has existed in Cable TV has allowed some of the smaller networks/channels to exist even though they only have a niche audience. Yes, everybody pays a little extra, but the diversity of programming is pretty high.
I agree with & understand everything you've said about network economics. The point I was making was that there is a difference between Microsoft the alleged monopolist and Microsoft the beneficiary of network economies.
Because of the way network economies work, there will naturally be a tendancy for people to standardize on a particular platform.
Sure, it would be nice if Microsoft used only 100% standardized file formats (*note, this is the one thing that the courts should have done to Microsoft, in my opinion). But the formats are not being arbitrarily changed, and to take the Office example, each version of Office is capabable both of reading and writing any of the earlier Microsoft file format standards.
People save their documents in the newer formats because they're better. Picture a two-pan balance with "better" on one side and "standard" on the other. In the case of Microsoft Office file formats, the consuming public has tipped the balance toward "better".
Sounds like the linux community needs to hire some salespeople and a marketing department!
Isn't Linux and OSS a legitimate alternative?
Your "bad for consumers" examples assume that consumers are idiots. If it's so bad, why do people keep abusing themselves by buying Microsoft products?
1) Consumers will save money: Bzzt. PDF Viewer is free. Additionally, the format for PDF is published so that people can write both viewers and creators for free.
If it's free, then why does anyone care what Microsoft does. Do we really think that consumers are stupid enough to pay for something when there's a perfectly acceptable free alternative? Microsoft won't sell much of it's product unless it is vastly superior, with all of the free alternatives out there... :) Oh, wait... some people don't consider the 13 hours it took them to get the 'free' version working to constitute a costless endevour.
2) Consumers will have extra money: Bzzt. Again wrong. You have PDF which is still free versus a feature that will be included in the latest version of Office, which isn't free. Additionally, XDocs competes with the Forms feature in PDF, not with PDF in general.
Ok... you've said it again, there is a great free alternative out there. Consumers must be very naive. Look, most people I know aren't going to pay $800 for the latest version of Office unless it benefits them in some way that they foresee to have value greater than the $800 they're spending.
So, have you looked at the price MS charges for Office? Oh yeah, in addition you'll need to be running Win 2K SP3 or XP in order to run this version of Office.
Yes, see the $800 figure above.
Now on to your straw man. The poster wasn't saying that the fall of PDF was going to destroy the economy. He was stating that the settlement handed to MS will give them carte blanche to wage full scale war against any and all "competitors" in the computer industry.
The thing you're missing, and the thing that most people who are heavily emotionally invested in the debate miss, is that nobody is being forced to use anything. If half of the hours spent on Slashdot arguing about this were dedicated to competing with Microsoft, GNU/Linux would have won at least a year or two ago.
Saying that there's a monopoly is really a way to cloud the issue, becuase most people have been taught since the third grade that monopolies are bad. Anti-trust legislation is intended to protect consumers. It is necessary to show how consumers have been harmed in order to successfully enact anti-trust penalties against a company.
Think about it. If you start a company you look around and see that you have competetors. Your competetors spend every waking moment trying to edge your company out. You do the same. It's called competition. Businesses don't gain anything by running neck-and-neck with the next guy, they need to develop as much advantage as possible. In fact, business is actually a competition to see who can have the fewest all-around competetors, which is why companies always try to expand their offerings and services. This is called competetive differentiation. The more competetive advantage you have, the more money you can make which you can then spend on innovation to further that advantage. Anti-trust law exists because sometimes consumers are harmed when one company becomes too successful. Note, I said sometimes, not always.
Suppose Microsoft had not been very successful but managed to retain some maintenance business based on that original MS-DOS contract. Would the world be a better place? Who knows. Would Linus have had that original MINIX system to tinker with? By saying monopolies are always bad, you are applying no critical thought to the issue.
THAT could lead to further damage to the economy as we see how MS prices things once they get control of the market segment.
So again you make the "consumers are dumb" argument. If Windows + Office cost $2000, I bet a LOT more companies would be using Linux/OpenOffice. It's kind of like the issue of oil vs. alternative fuel. We would all like to be able to use alternatively powered vehicles, but right now Oil is just cheaper b/c there is an existing infrastructure (gas pumps everyhwere). Economically, Microsoft stuff is cheaper than Linux, because of the advantages gained by the fact that everyone uses it. When that changes, Linux will win. One can already see some effects of Linux's success: Microsoft is moving to more and more open standards, IBM has embraced Linux, and there are fewer and fewer reasons not to use linux.
You don't have to grow your hair long and develop a festering hatred for Microsoft in order to believe that Linux will win. You just have to believe that most people wouldn't mind saving some money and that markets actually work.
That stuff happened in the past, and in the recent decision, the judge decided not to split up Microsoft, and narrowly outlined some areas where the company must now behave differently.
So my question is, do you trust the courts to settle the issue? Or do you think that because Microsoft committed its alleged acts that the company should no longer be able to develop new products?
It's one thing to disagree with the decision, but I think all parties should accept the decision that's been hanced down. In light of that, do you still think that Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to develop new products?
My point is, the playing field is what it is. Now that we're effectively beyond the anti-trust issue, at least judicially. What I'm asking is, which of the following describes your thought process:
1. Harping on the decision (Microsoft should have been broken up and Gates should be in jail).
2. Making an emotional appeal against Microsoft because it's "bad".
3. You're ok with the decision, but you don't trust Microsoft to do the right thing in the future.
There was a period of time (pre IE4 in software time) when any web browser was "Netscape" to the masses. I was there, I saw it.
With browsers 6 years ago there was very little loyalty, so MSIE could move in before everyone realized just how powerful MS was going to be over Netscape and the other companies involved in browsers.
Uhmmm... have you forgotten that most (normal, non-geek) people still called any web browser "Netscape" until about 1999???
I hope you're not serious. Can you please explain to us how having two products that do basically the same thing competing for market share is a bad thing?
Before you start worrying too much about how having a competetor to PDF will kill the economy, think about what will actually happen: 1) Consumers will save money because competition will drive the price of the technology down, and 2) those consumers will have a little extra cash in their pockets that they can use to purchase other goods or buy stock, or just save for a rainy day.
I'm sorry, but I don't think Adobe is the cornerstone of the US economy. If their market for electronic documents (aka PDF) shrinks, then they may have to cut a few jobs or sit down and figure out how to make their product more competetive. Meanwhile, the rest of us are saving money and getting a better product.
BTW, have you looked at the price that Adobe charges for Acrobat (not the reader, which is free)? If you want to use PDF you are paying more for it than the copy of Windowz you're running it on.
just a dumb mistake on my part... i intended to have the scores be such that a 7th game was required... all that would be necessary would be to have one of the teams win an extra game before the 6th...
A close cousin of the skateboarding Aibo can be found here.
It's not really an anti-Microsoft bias, it's more of an anti-Microsoft reflex.
Some economists argue that monopolies are actually an incentive for innovation, because the reward is so great for the company that innovates enough to break the monopoly. In any case, it's a tough question to ask in hindsight, though the answer is pretty simple if you're an apologist for one of Microsoft's competetors.
Your post contains a variety of items that are incorrect, but several stand out:
OEMs were not forced by Microsoft to ship a copy of Windows on every machine. It is you that is naive. Microsoft has an OEM arrangement that gives OEMs an incentive to buy a license for each PC sold. That those OEMs choose to do so is a result of the fact that 90% of their customers ask for Windows to be pre-installed. The alternate choice would have been to pay the standard retail price for all copies of Windows actually sold.
You may view this as some sort of trickery, but it's not. It is a simple business arrangement. That Dell (and others) decided to package and price their products in a way that offends you was their choice. OEMs could have just as easily masked the price of Windows in the configuration of their hardware. Why didn't they? Because evidently some consumers consider the addition of Windows to be a source of added value, or at least not a source of diminished value.
This isn't necessarly my opinion, it is the outcome of a free market. Consumers decide what they want based on the information they have. This is why companies spend money on ads.
Now let's talk about the Software itself:
Windows 95 was at least as stable as MacOS 8.x, and more stable than MacOS 7.x. The fact that more software developers chose to write software for Windows led to the presence of many more software titles for Windows, and this in turn led more consumers to purchase machines capable of running Windows. This was true for most businesses and many households.
IE 2.x and 1.x were garbage. By the time Netscape 3 came out, closely followed by IE3, Microsoft had won the browser war. Since then it has been Netscape playing catch-up, both in terms of browser performance and standards-compliance.
Before Office 95, competetors like WordPerfect produced superior products. But then WordPerfect 7 was released and it was an absolute dog. Lots of people I knew made the switch then, even after they had purchased WordPerfect.
Microsoft has made similar improvements in a variety of markets. I honestly believe that if the people running Apple had been smarter businesspeople, Microsoft would be lucky to be in second place today. Apple hardware and software had such a tremendous advantage for so long, both in terms of performance and usability, that it is an absolute shame that the company wasn't able to thrive competetively as a business. Some people I've known who have worked at Apple have told stories that suggest that it was managed loosely by self-characterized 'geniuses' who preferred glory over profits.
So, in a nutshell, I believe that if you're in business to sell software you have to accomplish a couple of things, and one of the most important is having a product available now that people are willing to pay for. Microsoft has this strategy down pat, which is why it is one of the most successful companies in the history of the world. Sure, you can imagine better software, and you may even be able to build it. But the fact is you didn't and they did. To the winner goes the spoils.
What ever happened to the "let the best software win" viewpoint? If non Microsoft software is "better enough", then it will win. No business would sacrefice profit out of some sentimental attachment to Microsoft products.