Plus 1 to the parent - The back end of SAP is in fact written in it's own proprietary language: ABAP, although when you look at the code it has more than a passing resemblance to COBOL. I've called it "mutant COBOL" for years now. It grew out of a reporting script in the early years of SAP and even today every program starts with a "REPORT" keyword. Whilst SAP can be extended in JAVA and they have a massive J2EE front end for a lot of their web based applications they are moving away from Java (something to do with ORACLE maybe?) and can seerve html straight from their backend SAP servers running ABAP using their "Webdynpro for ABAP" products.

Well the Australian stations are run by the Aussie Federal Government directly - the jobs aren't outsourced to some third party. Check out their web site at http://www.aad.gov.au/ to find out what they get up to.

There are no ATMs at the Australian Antarctic stations.

I'm a parent rep on a school ICT sub-committee that looked at ICT for the extension of our school that will extend into High School (grades 7-10, current school is only Kinder - 6) here in Australia. They were already heavily into Macs but we looked at equivalent Windows laptops and they came with no additional software and a heavy admin cost. For creativity the iLife software could not be beat. The iWork software was also dirt cheap for edu use. Then when it came to also using iPod Touch as handheld media devices for the students, any Windows solution was nowhere near for the price. Sure - you can get really cheap windows laptops but add on software and admin costs and there was no comparison.

I gather that the UI runs on top of a custom Linux kernel. Also the browser in the Pre is based on webkit.

If you look at: http://www.asusnotebook.com.au/eee-pc.php you will see that for exactly the same specs (i.e., 8.9" screen and 20 GB storage):

Linux: AUD $649;

Windows: AUD $799.

If you opt for the 12 GB XP model then it costs the same at: AUD $649 (stated in the description for the Linux model).

The AUD $599 XP models are the 7" eeePCs with extra RAM and a TV tuner bundled.

APC Magazine must have it wrong!