how many people by a mac as their first computer? how many a windows based pc? how many buy a mac after having owned a windows pc? and vice-versa? never yet seen that analysis. could tell you a lot. you'd expect people to pick one and stick with it, to avoid replacing software, if theres a significant number of people for whom thats not enough of an issue to stay the same. thats a problem for one side or the other. speaking as a mac owner, and former windows pc owner. I was *happy* to spend about £500 over the odds to get a MPB compaired to what I could hve spent on a windows pc laptop, the lack of time spent keeping it running *to me* was worth it over so far two years.

keep in mind if the 'computer' says you have no insurance, even if you can prove you have, they can still impound your car, afterall computers are never wrong. btw the insurance bods have 14 days to inform the dvla you are insured. have fun with that new car also given just how many anpr cameras the uk has you would have thought we would have almost zero uninsured cars, also zero untaxed cars, and cars without valid MOTs on the roads (all in the same database) given thst not true, why did they bother exactly?

make a "rugged" version of this, the sort of thing you can drop 6' or so onto concrete and have it bounce. more expensive yes. target this to technical people as a way to carry documentation with them, the wireless bit allows a custom 'server' to be used (another product for a partner) to act as a documentation server. now your field reps *always* have the most up to date docs with them, anywhere. years back I worked as a tech, I'd have killed for something like this to replace a huge number of printed manuals that no body bothered to carry around due to shear size. I think they are missing a trick here

the whole point in keeping the settlement private is so that others can't drag it into other cases and point to whats been agreed before. i don't think actually banning such orders is productive, since they would simply be replaced with agreements similar in effect, which could be harder to regulate. i do think there may well be a 'leak' here though, and i can guess which side it will come from

if microsoft specifically want to target ubuntu there is a simple, but risky option. launch a linux version of office, not all of it, but something with more "in the works", but make sure this *doesn't work* on ubuntu. make it work on something more obscure, or harder for the public to use. make it non GPL, even if its a nominally free or very low cost download. that stops it being passed around on CDs officially. of course if the rest of the package never actually appears, well too bad etc. the point being to take the focus away from ubuntu, but onto a smaller distro, make sure they are the only ones who can include this, but keep control of the terms etc. partly divide & conquer and partly pure bloddy mindedness. MS have a handle on apple, and as noted can cause apple pain, by avoiding linux for so long they have no leverage at all directly

easy, you have a basic system, and charge for just that, everyone gets the same basic system, you then have modules of software that attach to it or provide an interface to basic functions. want a business machine? purchase and install package 'x' multimedia? package 'y' mix and match, make the consumer oriented packages cheap enough, companies offering bundled deals. you could even make the core virtually free, but only have the file manager included, like the old atari ST series, didn't do anything other than file management out of the box. _maybe_ include notepad. businesses would pay extra for the ability to install the remote management package, home user wouldn't bother, but would probably install the "home entertainemnt" pack, to get solitare, the media player interface etc. support nightmare? not really for a programmer the APIs for everything are there in the base pack, just not the interfaces. MS make some cash from the base system, probably not too much, money is made by providing an easy and cost effective way to get stuff done. it also avoids the anti trust type bundling issues. of course the core machine *can't* get on the internet, so you can purchase MSIE as part of a package, or some other system if the open source people want to provide starter CDs. etc

keep in mind you can use apples desktop OS as a server, the core is there. what you are paying for is the tools to make it _easy_, if you *need* the server features that difference is probably worth paying to save your time. if you merely *want* the features, or one or two of them you can spend the time to find and install something that will do it. in that way its like the domain login for XP, 'pro' has it 'home' doesn't. but if you are prepared to spend the time you can get 'home' onto a domain via a registry hack. or if you have one XP machine... a stupidly simple 'hack' of using the machines name as the domanin name. useful with samba for example. OS X server is worth the difference if you need a sever. XP Home was crippled in so far as a home user could reasonably expect to use a domain, to connect to a home server, and there was no easy way to convert one to the other by downloading other software. or like the number of connections in XP when used as a server (as opposed to the server version) being crippled simply because they can etc. Apple are not perfect but they do this bit right, oh and the 'family' license bit is an idea MS need to copy. forget "activation", keep registration but ditch activation. provide a USB key dongle, but make it useful, include the core OS on it (read only) your machine boots from that, then to the files it configured on your drive. core os is now virus proof, its harder to copy (not impossible but more than a cd burner may be required if the key is non standard) and they can have the "it just works" method of installing MS are huge, ffs be creative and stop trying to remove value from a basically good product line. I use a mac, simply because i got sick of WGA flagging my legit copy as a pirate

Irrelevant, how many people would upgrade their hardware in order to specifically run the new version? they may get it if it will run reasonably well on what they have, but for the "rest of us" the operating system gets upgraded when the machine does. this is the reason linux doesn't get onto too many desktops, most people don't see the difference between the OS & the hardware. PCs run windows, whichever version they came with. Macs run OSX, here people are happier to upgrade but its not universal. Linux is run by people making a choice, windows is run by people who couldn't care *or* make the choice, the default is the largest share. if someone needs to spend $x on a version of windows, and will also have to upgrade something else they may as well generally get a new machine, and get windows a hell of a lot cheaper included with it