I live in one of the largest cities in Montcalm county mi. So I get to see all of this up close and personal. Honestly it is a good thing. Since electrolux left many moons ago the area has been in a fall. The loss of jobs led to a loss of people. That led to a loss of tax revenues that were used to repair the roads properly. Many of the roads that will be converted are mostly patched with tar and are in serious need of repaving if they were to get it. Now somebody above claimed that this was a step back to an Amish lifestyle. Well some of there roads have Amish farms on them anyway. There were paved to provide access for people going to the Amish bakeries and farms for goods. Which is happening less and less these days. Plowing is also a non argument. The roads have low priority plowing anyway which mean that they get plowed after all main arteries and city paved roads are cleared. Last week there was a news article about people in our state government wanted to increase the gas tax in order to cover the costs of repairing the roads. Well lets just say here in Mi at least many of the residence are sensitive to gas prices. This include calling in sick and taking vacation because they don't have enough money to pay for gas. This hurts productivity. It's the same reason that at this time in our society toll roads will not solve any problems. People can not spend any more. So if turning some roads to gravel allow the main arteries to be fixed and plowed I am personally all for it.

Internal company culture aside, comparing Google to Microsoft is like comparing apples to well apples. Let me explain....

Microsoft spends billions of dollars a year on research, and does barely anything innovative. Yet they turn out software that is buggy and full of security holes until the third service pack, and it still have holes in security.

Google spends little on research, and does a lot of innovative things. Yet they turn our buggy software that is fundamentally flawed in a security sense. Information is placed on servers with little backups and with users having no real control over the security of their documents.

Both companies market themselves as secure, both say they are on the leading edge. The only difference between the two companies is their internal culture, Microsoft being older has a more traditional model, Google being newer is a more fluid, "Peter Drucker/gore industries inspired" model. The important part is the product not how you get the product done as long as your employees are happy. JUST TURN OUT QUALITY SOFTWARE!!!!!!