Admittedly, this scores some shock value. Despite IBM seeing Microsoft as a competitor (which it is on many fronts), of all the alternatives to IE to turn to - Firefox??? Google Chrome, I could see. I just don't see how Firefox fits into IBM's strategy more than Chrome or, for that matter, IE. (Mind you I might not be as up-to-date as I oughtta be on where IBM is headed....)

LOL! I was just about to say the same thing! ...and let me just once again state for the record how much it amazes me that techno-bigotry continues to be alive & well after so many years. I mean, I have to admit that getting sucked into the odd MS vs. Java debate back in the good 'ol days used to entertain mildly. But now I generally regard such expressed attitude as symptomatic of one being either a junior developer (perhaps recently graduated, minds still processing fresh concepts untested in the real world) deprived of a proper education by opinionated instructors, or those who seek a bandwagon to jump on and exalt a strongly-held opinion as a cover for largely absent talent and competence. Forgive the rant...I recently emerged from a project teeming with examples of each extreme. ;)

I gotta tell you and everyone else here - I completely agree! I've thoguht the big-wigs at MS were all guilty of perhaps more than occasional lapses in judgement before (espeiclaly with all this nonsense over anti-piracy measures & product activation). But it's pretty kooky IMHO to be talking about Vista being the last Windows. Hopefully this isn't another Balmer-esque goof on the part of yet another MS exec and more a cynnical attempt at manipulating the media to throw off competitors. Google really isn't half the threat some of these journals make it out to be; and all one need to to reassure themselves of that fact is looking at the earnings reports & company valuations.

MS is doing well enough; Google isn't even trying to compete to out-soft Microsoft...it's trying to drive up ad revenue for goodness sake. It hasn't even yet shown it can produce Office software that truly competes with MS Office yet, and already the nuts are falling out of the trees - 1 every minute - trying to say if MS doesn't shape up Google will kill 'em!

Don't get me wrong, Google's doing well and certianly needs to bet watched...but kick MS's butt? Rubbish! And we've heard it all before - remember Netscape? Remember Sun and how Java was gonna "be the OS" and all that other hot air?

Guess it'll never go away...and the real threat here is that MS will hire some kook who subscribes to ZDNet and believes everything printed. I say let's see this "Internet-based-OS" get off a drawing board first!