Re:Not gonna happen (Score 1)

After reading down this thread, I had to come back up to the original points. There is so little recognition in this conversation and the many just like it for what the majority of computers do for a living.

Sure, there are folks who buy computers solely for fun and that's fine. There are also those who have too little to do with their stunning intelligence so new computers and software are needed to waste time surfing, dulling fear they may be missing something.

Applications and hardware are not what computers do in places that pay the rent. They use that technology to work productively. They do everything from handling what used to be simple drudgery to ecstatic art, all necessary and profitable uses for the machines and -- more to the point -- the folks who use them.

The only reason professional and mature users care about what Vista will do is whether the new bells and whistles will bring money to the table -- or frustration.

Haven't we all read the concensus that business will delay replacing XP with Vista until new hardware is bought. Well, there you have it. Presuming that's true, present systems are working just fine at their job of putting butter on the table and, yes, beautiful art on the wall.

It might be that the attention tiny computer minutiae drains away keeps energy from important innovation! We have no idea what systems in the real world might do in day-to-day activities if that were the subject instead of this drumbeat about OS.

The clear fact that Microsoft is a terrible failure financially -- and always has been -- leads me to think they will cobble up something AFTER Vista just to keep the Foundation liquid. Wouldn't you think so?

Meanwhile the silliness about MY computer needing to be hooked up to anything -- as in 'Internet as OS' -- is both offensive and wrong. I'll be there just as I am here, to learn, visit and get my funny bone tickled. But it won't change what I do with my system which is very much the same as I did with my portable Smith-Corona for some forty years as a writer. Word is helpful in that chore, by the way. But not as much as the old WordStar was. And that's a fact of life.

Have fun and stay alive to watch all this next year, too.