Re:Nonsense! (Score 2, Insightful)

The issue with that analogy is that Perrier is categorically better than tap water. If mineral water came from our taps, Perrier would find itself in a very bad position.

Is Windows categorically better than Linux? Certainly, it has benefits Linux does not, but the reverse is also true. To the extent that the two operating systems offer comparable functionality, the difference in their comparative pricing is magnified.

Even assuming that Windows is currently "better", how does it stay ahead of Linux in the long term? Clearly Linux will improve, therefore Windows must improve as fast or faster, if it is to *stay* better. Unfortunately, there are diminishing returns on the improvements you can make to a software system. After a certain point, when it is doing it's job optimally, more features don't actually improve it. Half the features MS Word has added over the past 2 years are just annoyances (talking paper clips, etc).

At some point, in order for your software to truly improve, you need to shift it's paradigm, and make it into a different thing which DOES have room for improvement. You can see this happening with ORACLE's focus on web-enabling their databases. They realize that they already do data retrieval as well as it can be done, so now they're stumbling into the Internet model.

So, back to the business model, Microsoft has to stay better than Linux, which means they must *depend* on incorporating valuable new paradigms (as opposed to shiny widgets) into their software. Paradigms that Linux can't incorporate as fast. Linux just has to be "nearly as good" as Windows was last year. And stay free :-).