On 5/13/2011 7:49 PM, Jack Stein wrote:
On 5/13/2011 11:02 PM, Doug Winterburn wrote:

Problem is that PCs come with Windows and the built in bump in price
because of that. If I don't want Windows, but Linux instead, I still
have to pay for Windows.

Moreover, your PC comes with windows already installed. Go to best buy and try to buy a PC with Linux installed. In the 90's I bought a PC from Gateway and was running OS/2 on it. When the hard drive died the first month, Gateway replaced the hard drive, and I they told me it would come with windows installed on it. I told them I didn't want windows installed on it, they said there was no choice. Indeed!

The result of this anti-competitive crap is everyone thinks they are getting viruses when there horribly designed OS is what is kicking their ass, over, and over and over.

Jack

There are more choices today than ever. This is directly attributable to the fact
that the Microsoft-Intel duopoly created a de facto standard onto which other
systems could be grafted.

If Microsoft is a monopolist, they are a very poor one. Their product comes
with incrementally greater numbers of features, their product price falls
in real terms, and they have very real competitive threats from companies
like Google.

But most of all, it is simply nobody's business what Microsoft does with
their own property. The anti-trust charges were trumped up and entirely
political, concocted by Netscape, Sun, et al because they didn't have a clue
how to compete in the consumer space.

Personally, I have used BSD Unix for many years, but Microsoft has been *good*
for the industry notwithstanding I am unenthusiastic about their products ...