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I am equally certain that Microsoft works diligently to maximize its profits and that is what a commercial corporation better be doing in a defensible way or they are violating a bunch of laws regarding shareholder's interests. Of course a short term advantage can be yielded to a longer term advantage in some strategy, but it has to be understood. I don't think I have tried to fool anyone in that regard. Product positioning is a part of a winning strategy to be sure, but it is not the only thing that is done.

A number of the features are also modified to suit Microsoft's ideas as to what is needed and appropriate to that market segment.

I don't agree that you cannot log onto a company lan with XP Home. I have never tried it at the office, but it works pretty well on my SOHO at home. It even has the Remote Desktop Connection client that we have been discussing although it doesn't allow for any connections the other way. You can connect to a workstation or server but you cannot have the workstation connect back.

In any event, the name, i.e. XP Home, sort of says it all. People may try to limp along with a personal OS in a professional network environment, but they are being penny-wise and pound foolish. Some people used Win98 in that role as well when Win2K or NT was a better choice for most office automation needs.

You are, of course, in an extreme minority. But there is no real problem for a vendor in having some people not in their target market segment. That is to be expected.

Well the linux market is nowhere near as populated!

You are being naive. The majority of people with computers are willing to buy nothing else. They are not angry and calling Microsoft names. Most are eager to get the next release of Windows as well. Linux users are frustrated to some extent because they cannot understand how it is that such an obvious hit as their pet is not welcomed with open arms by all these grumpy Windows users, but the reality is that this horde of MS haters is a myth. You are not the only one to miscalculate so badly, think of GW Bush and his belief that the Iraqis were just chomping at the bit to get in step with the US!

None of this seems to prove anything. You say "Caldera tried some of them" and say "Apple is marginalized" and do not tie them to anything per se and claim that there is some failure there that proves something, but it is all nonsense. Microsoft identifies a number of target customer groups and packages a product that they think will appeal to that target group better than any other product, including other Microsoft products, and that will also motivate the consumers in the target group to upgrade from what they are now using, which is probably some prior version of the same product.

The fact that their strategy works so well speaks for the accuracy of their decisions. You style yourself as above the herd here, but I think these users are not so dumb as not interested in your version of optimal product design. Rather they are people who use computers for a purpose and that purpose continues to be well served by the products that they see coming from Microsoft. A few years ago their demands were so strong and so unanimous it was judged to be an effective monopoly for Microsoft since an OEM couldn't manage to sell a package product that did not include some version of the Windows OS platform. They are no less firm today.