I'd say Solaris won't go anywhere. Maybe it would eventually replace AIX?

As for GlassFish/NetBeans... I'm not so sure. I don't believe IBM owns the Eclipse IDE, however it does own Rational which is built on Eclipse. My guess would be IBM could position both of the products to be released as free offerings. They definitely won't be phased out though, it would have a huge backlash from the development community and hurt IBM in the long run. It would most likely be a merger of products.

As a previous poster mentioned, it'll be interesting to see if the US government allow it since they compete in so many of the same markets.

There's still the AIX and mainframes we produce. I don't remember if we produce the hardware itself, but I do know we do the software part of it. Maybe it'll be to produce better hardware? It'll be interesting to see what happens when/if it happens

On the back it has statements saying that both GFWL and Steam are required, as well as logos on the front of the box. As with what another poster said: Steam can be run in offline mode once it's been installed and activated. And the reason you didn't see an icon is because it doesn't install one to the desktop when it downloads through Steam(at least I've never seen one) because you have to run the game through Steam

I can't say why it took so long to install Steam unless it needed a really large update to run and it downloaded that as well. Steam has always installed extremely fast for me. It seems you're not the only one with the issue(really long install times), many other people have the same problem. Here's a FAQ from Valve on how to install from the DVD:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1783-EYZN-9672
And another link in case you have problems:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=806897
Those are more for people who are encountering the problems and not someone who has already returned it ;)

You can create an offline only GFWL account, which doesn't require any of your information. It's not very obvious that you can do this, but you can.

I do agree with you though, the Stardock/Impulse approach is much better and I've been very please with them. I've never downloaded anything from them, just physical copies. I really like that you don't need to activate unless you plan on using the online component. I think other companies should move toward this since I'm tired of the draconian DRM associated with many games. I do my research to ensure this DRM isn't present in any game I'm thinking of purchasing, I personally will not allow them my money to further what I feel is customer abuse.

I like Steam and feel it's a great service. It does have it's flaws however(the main one having to be online). But Steam is way better than the alternatives(SecuROM). Though I do feel they should take the route of Stardock/Impulse and allow single player/offline play without being online.

Why is this a surprise to anyone? If you truly believed the RIAA was working for the benefit of the artists, then please let me lift off those rosy glasses of yours. This "crusade" of the RIAA's was NEVER for the benefit of the artists. It was all about 1) scaring the consumers into conformity and 2) lining the top executives own pockets. Granted after the legal fees the exes probably aren't seeing much as they would like. In a perfect world the artists would see a cut of what the RIAA wins, but lets face it we don't live in a perfect world.

I would be all for the RIAA if they were true to what they say. The reality is they are just a bunch of greedy company executives wanting more money for themselves, not the artists.