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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (54695)	4/5/1999 3:14:00 PM
From: Freedom Fighter	Respond to of 132070

Mike, Sorry, this is it. It's an ongoing discussion about deflation. Subject 19528 Wayne

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (54695)	4/5/1999 3:52:00 PM
From: upanddown	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Hi Mike: This is probably a silly topic on yet another tech-mania day, especially for the most sacred of bloated cows, but I am wondering if MSFT is vulnerable. Had an interesting experience last week on vacation. I go into a cyber-cafe in Rome to send some E-mail. They have about a dozen machines. Most are unoccupied and the monitors off. I ask the guy if they are Windows 95 or 98. He gives me a look like I'am an idiot and says “only one machine is Windows, the rest are running Linux”. An American woman was using the Windows machine so I thought I would have to wait. I ask if it is difficult to start the browser under Linux. He starts it in about 10 seconds. I use it for an hour with no problems. I've heard that Mr Softee is more worried about Linux than the anti-trust suit. Now I know why. I have gone in the last few years from maybe 25% online/75% offline to approx 95% online/5% offline. Higher offline this month with the $%#%@*? taxes.<ng> Why would people be willing to accept an absurdly bloated and bug-ridden Windows 2000 (20-30M lines of code) just to start their browsers if there is a viable (and free) alternative ? If the street starts to realize that the OS monopoly is ending, they might take another look at MSFT earnings and realize that a lot of it comes from financial machinations and not from operating results. Probably no time soon but is it on your radar screen ? John