No, I have cable internet. It tends to stay online longer than I have battery (about 8 hours). It did die once for about 10 minutes after the power was out for several hours, but came back and stayed on throughout the rest of the power outage.

I realize this may not hold true for everyone, though.

You nailed it. I also worked in a company that dealt with a lot of financial transactions in the banking and insurance industries, and all of the separation of duties requirements meant NO ONE had admin on their workstations, even in software development.

The testing environment was actually run by the server team, and the development team had to effectively communicate how to install and operate the software. This lead to better than average documentation, and less issues once the software was deployed than I have witnessed in other companies.

The company I work for now does not allow developers local admin on their workstations. They get elevated privileges through their network login, depending on which machine they are using. Dev does not have any privileges outside of the dev environment (ie, they can't even log into the production systems).

I doubt this is possible with the current POTS wiring infrastructure, but it wouldn't take much of a battery to keep the ethernet port alive on your DSL or whatever modem they supply for a reasonable amount of time.

The town where I grew up had an older central office with no generator. Once the batteries went, POTS went as well.

With the right hardware, fax machines, credit card terminals, and satellite receivers can work over VoIP. I used to have to support folks with VoIP service at a wireless ISP, so I know it can be done. It's not as fast as a normal POTS line (usually limited to 9600 baud connections or lower), but I've seen it work.

You could also move away from a fax machine to a PDF scanner, and get credit card terminals that work over ethernet, then send everything over your internet connection instead of doing analog to digital to analog conversions.

My house security system has its own battery backup and cellular interface (not entirely sure what hardware it uses) to the alarm company.

Yes, my internet and VOIP and cell all work when the power goes out.

I haven't had a POTS line in over four years now.

Granted, I took measures to ensure I would have working internet and VOIP when the power went out, but it's not THAT hard to figure out what you need to keep your lines of communication open in the event one loses power.

Yeah, it's a threat, whether you think so or not. I manage about 50 workstations, all Macs, and until recently we've been buying Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac with every new workstation. Since OpenOffice 3.1 came out, people are using it more and more, mainly because that's what they are using at home on Linux and Windows workstations. We no longer purchase Microsoft Office for Mac since OpenOffice is becoming the preferred office suite.

There's definitely a shift beginning to happen away from all things Microsoft when it comes to home computers. More and more people are being exposed to alternatives to Microsoft, simply through the products available from Apple, applications in the "cloud", set top appliances for home entertainment, alternative firmwares for things like wifi routers, and yes, even Linux distributions like Ubuntu that have steadily been improving the end-user experience over the past several years. Microsoft is not the end all be all company it once was, people are looking at alternatives, especially if the cost is significantly lower up front.

As much as I'd love to see everyone running Ubuntu and OpenOffice, I realize it's not going to happen overnight. But it is starting to happen in places I would have never expected just a couple years ago. This is the threat Microsoft perceives. If this shift gains momentum, it will begin to significantly impact their bottom line in a matter of years.

As for your experiences with OpenOffice, a couple of changes to Firefox would have it automatically opening .CSV files in a matter of seconds. Long load times? You are on a sub $300 notebook. Go purchase Microsoft Office 2007, or download a beta, and compare the two instead of blindly faulting OpenOffice for poor performance. It's probably the cheap machine at fault here.

In the end, you used TWO competing products to Microsoft Office, for free (minus your time). And you think Microsoft doesn't have anything to worry about? Have you purchased Microsoft Office for the netbook yet?

I don't know why people still think the Oldsmobile diesel was based on a gasoline engine. It wasn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile_V8_engine#LF9_Diesel