Loss to alternatives can happen only in the business space -

- so that space is being differentiated for different treatment. Note the "Home Edition" and "Professional Edition" titles now in use, and the fact that 500+ employee corps are no longer allowed to use OEM licenses. This will migrate downward as "volume licensing" did until it reaches 5 employees - so business isn't going to be allowed OEM preloads anyway.

Microsoft is gradually making the "Home" license distasteful to business (restricted networking, multimedia toys) and the "Professional" license distasteful to home users (price, availability).

The consumer space is locked up totally. Consumers will not go to alternatives no matter what, so Microsoft is free to abuse them to the full extent of the law (and beyond) without losing measurable market. They're working on deals with the RIAA/MPAA to make Windows the only distribution channel for copyrighted content.

The consumer space will boil down to a death match between Microsoft and Sony. None other need apply. The RIAA/MPAA will make sure both stay in the picture so they don't get "single sourced".

Linux? Hell no - Kids control the home space and kids are entirely herd animals. Today's kids resent even having to install games - they want plug and go. The most popular games, instant messaging and the most popular music fills out their desires. Microsoft's objective is to see that their parents pay dearly for all three. Linux hasn't a chance in hell except as an embedded OS in game machines and the like.

Sure, a few kids will run Linux, every generation has its social outcasts, but that's not a significant market.

In the business market Microsoft will leverage their Office monopoly and .NET to the full extent of the law (and beyond). They will lose some market share, especially as PCs give way to specialized devices, but their "trump card", freedom from choice, is so attractive to business managers it will hold most of the business market.

PHBs in most companies will sign off on just about any budget busting expense for the privelage of uttering those magic words, "We really don't have a choice here". This will not change until these companies are destroyed by the few competitors willing to use alternatives. They will remain faithful to Microsoft to the very end.

Tried to hit aaxnet.com, to see if you'd added this gem to the other clue-sticks (a place I send wannabe up-graders, whenever I have the chance). Alas incredibly s l o w just now, to load.

I hope that last er nice notoriety/15 minutes of Fame (with the Reg. link) has kept your hits up to the requisite standards of a primo muckraker's checkin spot! (?) Saves me lots of repetition anyway: I just say, "go there and read; take notes. If I can expand on any points that aren't already crystal clear - I'll try.. or send you to a few other sources".

I may have ID'd two essential and persistent failures of the small and diffuse mass of folk who appear to have grokked the situation to fullness, all along:

1) Still.. while there are several 'local nodes' of the sort as your effort is - there is no organization of "The M$-(ab)Used" that has anything like universal recognition, support = Actual Dues / some means for covering expenses and a few? full-time hires of appropriate sanity and tenacity. Apparently.. thus far, it hasn't seemed to be Worth-it enough - for a significantly large group of the disillusioned to put money where mouth is. "Microsoft Watch and Protection-therefrom" would be the essence of a title, no doubt already used - somewhere.

No $ means that a dedicated editor, organizer would have to starve / live by day job. You can do that for love.. for a time. But who can continue to love.. indefinitely.. an amorphous mass of ovine critters safely grazing on known Anthrax-laced cotton candy? (And Loving It ??)

2) Alcohol- drug- religion- gambling- sex- addictions have all spawned Twelve-Step Rehabilitation orgs, for dissemination of 'Truth' (Ok.. OK.. - see Philosophy forum) and for a few proven methods for kicking addictions: Once! you actually *Are Resolved* to - always that comes first.

Kicking M$ - connotes a kaleidoscope of those intentional lock-in consequences - all built upon the pyramid whose base is surely ~ sloth, intellectual and even survival-laziness which adores comfort and eschews the effort to become informed. Ditto with the other named addictions.

So it is a battle against the very foundations of Murican Pop-culture: ~go to sleep, consume mindlessly, go to a Theme park when the DTs strike. Never question yours or anyone's assumptions -- seek Comfort at all cost. (Political equiv: believe the slogans and the labels; voting is optional. When uncertain - buy something on CC, for comfortable diversion. Dream the Murican Dream nonstop.)

Ergo, it seems: the culture is against 1) paying for information necessary to wanting to be weaned from an addiction; thus 2) even a 12-Step org of excellent planning and execution - might well languish largely unvisited except by - the Choir actually in little need of its services [??]

What have I missed? It appears that Billy n'Bally have been formally anointed as (the most recently noticeable) Co-Popes of Capitalist Theology and shall remain in this position indefinitely, perhaps even unto inheritance by sibling Beastlets yet to be spawned septically.

Leaving: the case of Pope John XXIII, his (very temporary) just plain Wise subtlety and thus: mysterious death, shortly after his views became noticeable to The Curia.

Assassination or concupiscence? Are those the only choices (realistically) left in a declining culture?

Ashton
Nuke from orbit. A phrase which just won't go away.
The Cassandra Crossing (plague train)

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