MS makes yet another smart move 1718

Getting closer all the time. And even Word of the day didn't offer 100% Wordperfect support. People do switch and abandon old data all the time.

Say, I forgot to ask. What is it that Access does that other RDBs don't? I'm not a DB guy myself and from everything I've heard Access isn't a terribly sophisticated RDB...

Whatever. I doubt if there is a set of circumstances that would cause you to abandon the 'slopware' squawking, so I won't waste time debating that with you. My point is that, for the vast majority of home needs, any of the three main home computer operating systems (Windows, Linux, OSX) are 'good enough'. They do what's needed; the differences are minor and mostly cosmetic. Now, Windows *cannot* undersell or buy out Linux, which has been their traditional strategies. It must compete on other considerations like quality. I don't know of a case where Microsoft has successfully competed as the top-quality vendor (though there must be a few), only as the lowest-price, 'good enough' vendor. One would presume a major corporation would be a little more up-to-date on their patches than a bunch of small bulletin boards. Besides which, Microsoft products have had a lot more than the Slammer worm hit them. Yup, recently. As in, "they haven't been trying long". Linux has been there from the get-go; in many ways, Linux made the "pile of PCs" style of supercomputing possible (Beowulf, anyone?). The hardware makers don't "want" to support it. They *have* to play Microsoft's game to get Windows at the prices they need to survive. For example, not installing other operating systems on their products. (Look up BeOS and the 'trade secret' contracts that Microsoft makes OEMs sign...) Fortunately, embedded developers aren't forced to play Microsoft's game. And WinCE hasn't done well at all outside of PDAs (where MS has benefitted from the symbiotic nature of PDAs and desktops).

Two words: screen size. Either you have a large comfortable screen (and an uncomfortably bulky package) or a small squinty screen (and it fits in your pocket). But if you can use the big monitor that's already there...

-- Sincerely,

Ray Ingles (313) 227-2317

"If you knew that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had received a memo a month before Pearl Harbor enbreastled, "Japanese Determined to Attack the United States in the Pacific," and that he had done nothing about that information, would that knowledge change your perception of FDR as a wise war leader?" - Jim Pinkerton