I rather have the equivalent of VS on Linux than just another Eclipse plug-in. Here comes the Embrace...

So EU is basically saying IBM's DB2 and Microsoft's SQL Server, plus PostgreSQL, together ain't much of a competition?

Every other story ends up with 200+ replies. This one: 40+. That says it all about Yahoo.

Why bother with browsers at all then? They might as well come out and say everyone should just ditch free web browsers and just install an Adobe plug-ins or a Silverlight runtime, buy their application servers and IDEs, and code in the language that they dictate instead of more open and continually developing web standards that the majority can agree on. That's what Adobe and MSFT hopes. They still think it's 1999 and they can take over your web experience and tell you what is "Rich Internet Experience" and what is not. The only 2 reason Flash continue to be used are 1) annoying ads, and 2) porn. I still haven't met anyone who thinks an entire site developed in Flash provides an enjoyable experience to users after about 2 minutes besides Flash developers and managers that hired them.

Frankly most web users probably mistaken FriendsFeed for FriendFinder, therefore the relative small user base. And let's face it - FF just has too many bad connotations.

MSFT doesn't really care except as a backup plan and to check out the competition and see how it can slow it down. Meanwhile MSFT will skip most standards and just implement Silverlight. Relegating the browser to irrelevance and enforcing a proprietary plug-in has always been the biggest threat to open browser standards, and way for MSFT to keep the desktop dominance. MSFT just wanted to make sure that before all Windows shops eventually toe the line on Silverlight, they can still live with apps on IE comparing to other newer browsers.

This is a good survey to show what kind of people care to take CNET surveys.

I expect my next Toyota truck to turn into a Transformer robot whenever some idiot cuts in front of me on the road.

Soon it'll run circles around Linux, when it begins to write its own software, gains consciousness, and declares Linus is dead.

and innovate very little. While the smaller, more agile ones foster the biggest stars. Then they attract more matter, merging into bigger galaxies, and become a monopoly.

Stop using Windows on all government desktops and servers.

... if he had chosen some other OS+Desktop? Linux flavors? OS X as Apple had proposed? Imagine what would the OLPC look like now running iPhone OS. But somehow I think by 2nd year there would've been lawsuit from someone, or back-stabbing manufacturers, or supply line problems that it'll still cost more than a smartphone, and he would've switched to Windows XP anyway from marketing pressures. So all this reflection is pointless.

Using the Pavlov's Dog analogy always rile up some people. :) Your assertion that the overall mobile market is similar to overall desktop/laptop OS is debatable. I own an iPhone, and other than browsing for research I don't do work on it. I hope you are right, but I'll be more convinced when Windows falls below 80% of all desktop OS, or Bing overtaking Yahoo search.

People need to be reminded of this over and over to put things in perspective. Lots people are putting Google on a par with MSFT now and that is just plain wrong. Right now 90% of Google runs on top of Windows. It's like renting a lemonade stand inside a supermarket. I think most people misinterpret what Cringely is saying, or plain did not read the article. People are animals. Train them a certain way and they respond to your command. I've found Chrome unstable on Windows and Safari (both based on WebKit) much much slower on Windows than on a Mac. It would not take much for the Windows OS to somehow make using Google products so much harder and inconvenient, and people will switch back to using 90% all MSFT software and think there is actually fair competition. Google has to keep at more than just Search to ensure it has a reliable platform and venue for its search business.

1). People debate the merits of different email systems as if none of their mail traffic ever goes outside of their firewall. The idea of internal message never leaking out is an illusion. 2). Company email maintenance is a big part of IT support. No manager will volunteer to give up that budget and personnel and lost of IT jobs. It's not user inertia. It is in-house IT inertia. 3) I haven't used MS Office for 3 years. Nobody in my office knows the difference in documents I create. 4) I've found Gmail faster and more responsive and have better uptime than my company's own corporate mail. 4) Since maintaining email and email data has become so expensive, my organization has severely limited the server storage capacity of each user - much less than Gmail. To ensure you do not lose your important messages and data our IT recommend you BACK UP THE MESSAGES ON YOUR OWN IN YOUR PC to save server room. Are you kidding me? Is this 2009 or 1999? Forget data security and backup issue on my desktop for a minute. It is not worth my time and I think it is a ridiculous use of my time at my hourly rate when there are other project priorities and deadlines. 5) Using email as part of your project workflow is just plain wrong. Any important notes and work orders should be in a real project management system. 6) Outlook is the principle carrier of viruses. 7) If your organization cannot keep an Internet line up 99.99% of the time in this day and age, you've got bigger underlying fundamental problems than just email and local apps.