"dave" wrote in message
...
Billy Smith wrote:

Thats a great assessment! I wonder how that fool Gates got those billions
of dollars?

By stifling competition (and thereby innovation) and either buying or
burying anyone who got in his stinky paranoid way?

The size of a bank account has nothing to do with whether a product works
well or not. In fact, more often than not, it may be a contra-indicator
of real intrinsic value.

You sound like a conspiracy theorist. Interesting, when you consider that
the computer industry and users at large could very well get rid of Gates
and his software. All someone would have to do is to make a compatible
software system that would be easy for the user to install and format the
old drive. Then provided you could surf the net, connect to the Net, word
process, Presentations, databases, games, multimedia, pictures, etc, it
might even be a blast.

Linux hasn't been able to do it. Mandrake was crap. Lindows couldn't do it.
Red Hat didnt. Apple hasn't accomplished crap, etc.
So when is this big change going to occur. After all, Gates can't make you
accept his system provided a reasonable alternative exists with the
supporting software, applications, and capabilities to do everything that
any Windows system does. All it would take is for someone to produce for 100
bucks a copy or so a decent operating system that actually can be placed on
any computer and work within the hardware system of that computer. Then have
the background applications.

Gates couldnt stop me from putting Linux on my machines when I did. It was
the fact that Linux was crappy and incapable of utilization in a way that
would benefit myself the user. And until they can put a copy of Linux out
that interfaces with a wide variety of programs, then they will continue to
honor Gates. Until they produce something certifably stable, decent, and
affordable that everyone can use with ease, Windows will still own you guys.