Because keeping track of what sites(and thus, their web apps) work with which browser is something the average user doesn't want to keep track of. Having a 'Native App UI' shortcut, however, is something your average user doesn't mind as much.

A 'recent video-card with 256-512MB' means PCI-E. For a LOT of people, this means a new motherboard (and, consequently, RAM+CPU) to go from AGP to PCI-E... in essence, a full upgrade, which'll easily cost you $600.

My old AGP machine ran WoW quite well, and choked on WAR like a... well, I'll not bother with an analogy here. A full system upgrade was necessary to move at all in Inevitable City... and this was on a dead server (Tor Elyr).

There are a few things you're not considering here, though:

1. The Open Office XML format (.docx, .pptx, .xlsx, etc) is the default behavior for Office 2008, and while those of your department may trade docs now in that format, sooner or later, people will get lazy and start creating docs in the newer format.
2. If you do any document transfers with other companies, eventually, you will see the dreaded .docx. What will you do then?

I'm not even going to get into the number of FOSS-based companies you leave in the cold by hanging onto .doc and the proprietary document format that it represents instead of using the freely available OOXML specification.

It'll sound like a Zergling rush?

The legal difference here is that there is no car manufacturer that has 90% of the market share of cars (and thus makes them the target of anti-trust rulings).

If Toyota had 90% market share, then yes, they'd have to install 3rd party radios to follow this precedent.

I think if you add 'than previous versions of IE' to that sentence, you'll be closer to the author's intent. At least, that's how I read it.

I think, if there is any real call to state that IE is 'forced' upon users is that it is so difficult to uninstall from the system. If it were simply 'bundled' with the OS and able to be uninstalled like any other component, it would have greater defense against anti-trust, IMO.

We call those guys 'management'.

Analogies that liken Windows users to someone with learning disabilities is so 10 minutes ago....

It may also cut down on the number of people that actually post to YouTube. If any company can claim a video is copyrighted and get ads placed all over it, what steps does the author have to declare the work a 'derivative' or 'artistic representation' (in other words, fight the copyright infringement claim)?

So, I guess you're a /. subscriber as well?

Or have you not noticed the banners on all the pages?

Marketing people will stop seeing advertising as a revenue stream when people actually stop using a service because of the advertisements. Or, to put it another way: marketing people will stop seeing advertising as another revenue stream when it actually stops being a revenue stream.

Que the intro to Win 7. At least 'lean' is becoming a MS option again, by all accounts.

I don't think you poured enough sarcasm on this one to get the +1 Funny you were looking for, AC.

The 'compatible with their system' is the rub, unfortunately. If a phone does not support a feature that is available on your contract (My Fave 5, or something akin to that which has a representation on your phone), the carrier could claim that the phone is 'incompatible' and deny service (or require you to enter a contract that does not include My Fave 5).

Receiving an international text message can incur additional fees, depending on your plan here in the states as well.