I've been using the HP EliteBook 8540w and it's been hard to destroy. I ran an HP demo unit through the mill too (dropped it from six feet on all corners, etc) - it's rated for military use, and I'm pretty sure it's one step below the ruggedized laptops you can get with armor plating.

A small 25 user company would best take advantage of Windows 2008 Small Business, which allows for up to 75 users and includes both Exchange and SharePoint. After that you only deal with OEM licenses of Windows. Outlook is optional, as Exchange provides capable webmail services, but again, Office Small business edition provides reasonable pricing for a small shop.

Remote desktops is a possibility, but the real loss that will stem from the tide of cloud computing is the atrophy of the personal computer down to a set top box whose usage is supported by ads. An iPad or iPhone is an apt example - when the personal computer no longer exists, where will an end-user's freedom to explore go?

The Tinkerer's Sunset is a good example of what bothers me about the current widespread embrace of cloud computing.

Why does't slashdot have a like button

It takes Microsoft Excel approximately 1.5 seconds to load on a moderately old PC running Windows XP; this with many more features available to it...

That was an odd way of agreeing with him. :-)

Hear hear! That's basically the upshot yes. You're foisting your personal documents onto a public server, you're allowing a company to index it and show you ads based on the resulting content you save/create, and people do it because they know only that they dislike Microsoft and don't want to pay money for goods and services.

It'll be interesting to see the advertising bubble burst when everyone realises those little sidebar ads don't generate nearly enough revenue in the real world.

Crap. I misread the post to which I replied. I thought they were referring to Internet Explorer and not just version 6 :[

Rich client software connecting to network servers is a long-standing formula that everyone has employed until the cloud buzzword bandwagon rolled into town. In most cases software applications running on the local computer will remain much more feature-rich and contain much more functionality than a web based application.

The day web based applications overtake desktop applications is the day the web browser weighs in at over a gigabyte in size, accounting for all the API's and associated background services that will be required to deliver them.

This is just another attempt at offering 'software as a service', rental software which is something slashdotters moaned loudly about when Microsoft promoted the concept in the early 2000's. Now that Google is planning on it, it's being hailed as heroism.

~65% of users in America and Europe actually. Let's not declare IE dead before its time.

Windows 7 preserves almost all the metaphors and usage traits people are used to from XP, and introduces new convenience features. I think a transition to Windows 7 from XP would be a much smoother process than an introduction to a new platform.

Is there a good reason to switch the family to Linux, other than for ideological reasons?

Hahah.