MS makes yet another smart move 1725

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, DFS wrote on Fri, 11 Mar 2005 23:27:25 -0500

No doubt the top horse-and-buggy manufacturer was very sure of his dominance sometime in the late 1800's or early 1900's when the "horseless carriage" came out.

Even Thomas Watson was a little confused back in 1943:

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

and a little later a copy of Popular Mechanics in 1946 proudly proclaimed that

"Computer in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."

Even as late as 1977 Ken Olson (DEC chairman-founder) proclaimed:

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

And of course back in 1876, in a fit of short-sightedness that can only be described as extremely absurd, a Western Union internal memo declared:

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."

(Nokia in the US alone (stock symbol NOK) reports an enterprise value of $60.77B, a market cap of $75.79B, and revenues of $38.01B. Not bad for an item with "no value", though I'm wondering how much this was worth in 1876 dollars.)

I avoid it like the plague. Come to think of it, I avoid it *because* of the plague. One wonders: why the plague?

Well, thanks ... I think. :-P :-)

rest snipped

-- It's still legal to go .sigless.