begin rant
Does the word "Monopoly" mean anything to you? If Microsoft does not "feed the beast" they go under, just that simple.
I can't argue with any of that Ceewan.
Being too large while not expanding is one of the reasons company's pay dividends.
The sad thing is, some company's actually produce new innovative products. (Apple) Note that I don't like Apple for a number of reasons I won't get into. But I have to say, they are innovative and do produce quality products. In the long run, I think Microsoft is hurting themselves by coming out with a new OS every year.
It cost company's billions to re teach new .. yet redundant ideas. Changes are good sometimes when they're needed but there are other ways to make money. I think MS should be charging for updates and service packs if they need the extra revenue. Rather then moving a few buttons. or even worse, taking back door payments from czars.
I just think that when something works, why change it. I can't stand windows 7. People will argue and that's fine, but the way I organize my files, placing multiple windows side-by-side, and the drag and drop (functionality that XP had) It is such a pain in the ass under win7. The tool bars are so big. And then you can't even customize them. What kind of crap is that Microsoft? The hot spot extends all the way to both sides of the folder window. Not being able to right click a folder to do a search, or having the Move-To / Copy-To without inserting a registry hack is ridiculous.
I totally agree with what you said CK, about hardware company's and Linux. They don't deserve my money if they don't support Linux.. Another reason I can't stand Adobe. They buy Macromedia and then tell all the Linux users they're not supporting flash under Linux anymore. F..k Adobe when there's alternatives like Gimp. F..k Microsoft Office when there's things like Open Office.
Apple did the same thing: They bought Emagic, the company that made Logic Audio/now called Logic Pro (which was built ground up
by PC users for both Mac and PC. Then Apple bought the company and told all the PC users to go pound sand. People spent hundreds of thousands of dollar on their recording studios and 8+ thousand dollar low latency recording sound cards only to be screwed over by Apple.
I would really like to see Linux get better standards to compete with Microsoft. The Open source model is the only way to go these days. These coorps just can't be trusted. Now we need open source hardware.