In the early 80's? It was more like $300, and that was like $600 in today's money. The PC market will be saturated soon. The profit margins are on laptops, which are not quite as generic as PCs yet. Who cares. The Lindows "business model" is a pain in the ass. Why on earth can't they just install all that software on the computer, like other Linux installs. The one thing that impresses people about Linux is the sheer volume of included apps. They're ELATED that it does so much, without requiring installers. They DON'T CARE about the latest downloads, because the free apps they get are "good enough". Here's reality restated... People love their data. Most people love running familiar apps. People HATE installing software, and HATE losing data. Make a computer that satisfies those desires, and you'll have a popular machine. Believe it or not... people don't really like to customize their systems much. They want to alter their desktops, icons, and sounds... They do not want to reconfigure all their software.

That's nonsense. VNC does not allow you to "setup a Windows box and have 50 Linux desktops connect to it"--VNC doesn't magically transform a single user Windows machine into a multiuser machine. I wish it did, but XP is such a primitive system that that's not easily possible. As far as Windows is concerned, VNC gives you the ability to remotely control a machine into which you are logged in, no more.

In any case, what matters is not whether VNC lets you do this but that Microsoft tries to impose such restrictions. It's just another indication of how much they are trying to milk and control their customers. Any rational buyer should run from that kind of company, and this should be added to the long list of anticompetitive practices to be investigated.