"...the better Microsoft will in response make its own desktop offering...."

'having' a 'desktop offering' might be a good start...

a 10+ year compilation of stolen/broken/bloated/bastardized standard protocols & bought out technologies followed by multi-million $$$ media blitzs is... well...

a 10+ year compilation of stolen/broken/bloated/bastardized standard protocols & bought out technologies followed by multi-million $$$ media blitzs...

i gladly collect nice consulting fees bailing out the masses still clinging to the microsft 'good for the consumer' 'features' and started a healthy niche in repair & recovery thanks to the 'trusted compting architechture'

to ms fans... where do you want to go today???... from paying big bucks to billy boy... then 2x3x4x more to consultants to fix it all for ya....

will that be cash or charge....

This guy is simply full of crap !

Wow.

It was Bill Gates himself that claimed Open Source was a great evil that will destroy the software world if allowed to continue.

Add to this that the GNU/Linux operating system is now at the top of Microsofts threat list (at #2 last I checked). Microsoft spent much of the past 2 years slagging Open Source, Free Software, the GNU General Public License and pretty much everything *except* the BSD-style licenses. The simple reason for this being that the BSD-style licenses allow them to steal the code without so much as acknowledging they used it or a polite "thank you". Every commercial Microsoft product [or very close to it] uses various BSD-style-licensed code. It is just so lame how Microsoft deals with things.

They are even paying off SCO to try to create the impression that it isn't a safe and viable operating system. Bottom line is that Microsoft is more scared than it has ever been because there is no company to illegally squash here. Unless they can come up with some patent or lawsuit to invalidate the GNU GPL license, they are going to lose their illegal hold on the market.

Just a while ago a lawsuit was won against Microsoft, one that was claiming they used illegal practices to squash the upcoming alternative operating system BeOS. All they had to do was force every company under the Microsoft wing (most of them) to not support BeOS as a company and as a product and blammo, it goes to dust. But with a company like that will bills to pay, their 30 million USD winnings were just enough to pay off their debts and close the company.

There is no such company when it comes to GNU/Linux ... Microsoft is screwed.

Is it just me, or does it seem that there is increasingly more talk about Linux being widely adopted on the desktop? The more sources that report that Linux is comming, the more likely businesses will choose to use it, so even if all of what we've seen lately is hype, it still serves to advance Linux.

MS should be scared. Many of the arguments made against Linux on the desktop are 5 year old stereotypes. There was a recent study done that took a group of people whom had never used computers before. One group was assigned to learn how to use Windows and another group Linux. The findings were they both had a very similiar experience. Most of these articles make the argument "Linux isn't good because I'm not used to it and I don't know it". They complain about the things windows has and it doesn't have. But as a linux user, I look at all the things Linux has that Windows doesn't.

How's Linux doing down in Munich btw? There was a good Wired story on it.

Isn't this Brad Tipp the same one who last year said "We should learn from open source" at a Microsoft IT Forum in Europe. You gotta like this guy@!@!

They have been doing this for some time. Hiring prominent programmers in markets that they THINK they might be entering in years. Here is your office, do your thing, there is no product to be made yet.

Microsoft doesn't want ANY other company to be growing so that it can be a threat. Even if they don't directly compete at the time.

no wonder as you reported earlier in the week MS just snapped up the SUSE exec who helped Munich choose Linux in the desktop over Office!!