@ Martin Owens

"See now even if Microsoft come out with useful technology that really moves the industry forwards in some way..."

Then pigs will fly, world peace will break out, and the stockholders in MS will have Ballmer's head on a platter.

I can't say that the last item bothers me a lot, but as the Magic 8-Ball says, "Outlook not so good."

Microsoft has *never* innovated technologically (MS-DOS, for example, was simply the PC version of existing Disk Operating Systems - "DOS" being the acronym - and Windows was a blatant attempt to rip off Macintosh, Atari ST, Amiga, and the Digital Research version of the Graphics Environment Manager). Their sole innovation has always been in Marketing - and they achieved their monopoly position by unlawful means, as documented in not one but two US Federal anti-trust lawsuits brought against Microsoft. See http://www.maxframe.com/DR/Info/fullstory/ca_sues_ms.html for details of private charges agaisnt Microsoft, some of which date back as far as 1991.