If Microsoft is flagging, I actually don't think it's lack of research, in their case. They are way out in front of every movement in industry (hence the patent fees), what they lack is the design and marketing to capitalize on it themselves.
Granted we are just comparing individual companies. Apple is an American company and has done amazingly well. But, personal opinion here, Apple's magic is not very substantive, and people are very fickle in what is considered cool. (Not that Apple's products aren't good, but their success in recent years has been way out of proportion to how good they are - the quality created a fad - and that won't last).
Anyways, that's just it... there's no social pressure without eye contact. It is too tempting to websurf during a teleconference.
So I want to have stable, low-latency, 20-way video conferencing before I hear anybody claim more bandwidth wouldn't be useful.
(Of course even then telecommuters have to download big files often enough).
And all the unions can do is stab him
Of course they are. What else can you do when someone is trying to murder you?
As far as Illinois' fiscal problems, they started under Thompson (R), who wanted to both cut taxes and increase spending (sound familiar?). Edgar (R) followed his footsteps, as did Ryan (R). The screaming didn't start until Blago (D) and it's still a terrible problem, but is slowly improving.
Ryan and Blago both went to prison for bribery. Thompson (R) unsuccessfully defended Blago in his bribery trial (note that even Johnny Cochran and F. Lee Baily together wouldn't have been able to keep him out of the slammer).
The current Republican candidate, who "earns" a thousand times the median income, wants to tax my pensions, my social security, haircuts, food, medicine, while slashing both his own taxes and school funding.
No way in hell could I vote for that guy.
Anyway, I have better uses of my time than to waste another minute with you.
Man must shape his tools lest they shape him. -- Arthur R. Miller