I must say I’m impressed with what I’m seeing, but what can I say. The changes are long overdue, and it will only be worse by 2005. I find it hard imagining linux not improving by a vast many times more than windows in that time.
Microsoft has realized that there’s competition, and so they’re finally improving their product. But the fact that it’ll be another two years means they might have lost out.
At the rate open source products are improving, Longhorn will be below the standard upon release.
Seriously, how many times did Microsoft follow the style of their early alpha (not counting interim releases)? Once? Twice? Never? Yeah, never is more like it. Don’t believe? Compare early screenshots of codename Chicago (IIRC, or Memphis) and Windows 95 – stark difference. And early alphas of Whistler and Windows XP – even more stark difference.
—
Beside, the author at the end of the article said Quake is faster on Longhorn than Windows XP – by how much? Benchmarks anyone?
I just read the article and francly i did not find any compeling reason to upgrade.
Microsoft just keep up the same old game adding “features” that look good in the news but lack and actual improvent on the news.
This “features” are really nothing new… are they kidding with me ? for example guys at my work are sooo happy remote acessing with terminal services a windows 2000 advance server 3 or 4 at the same time (it does not give more than 4 at a time) are they kidding with me ??? Unix has this capacity for year and year and has no limit on the amout of users (all depends on the machine), what programs they use etc etc etc.
Microsoft has been for the last year just about marketing and destroying all new idears that pose any problem for them.
They build nothing, they are always changing the rules (their rules). This OS seems like it… all bunch of new code, problably with more and more security problems since it’s new untested code
For me this OS apears to be over cute, and will probably require major hardware upgrades.
I will just remain with Linux for now it’s getting really better on the desktop (has a server it rules) and it’s all about being flexible for the useer, plus it’s STABLE.
has a side joke i really liked the “Administrator” that wrote this article on page 3 :
My most favored applications as an admin are Outlook and Word. Don’t know about the rest of the world but I love them to bits. Outlook has this ability to talk to the exchange server and synchronize the mail.
What a dick head it apears the System Administrator at my work… that have to do a reboot on our powerfull windows 2000 advanced server cluster every day since the dam thing is very unstable.
Our Unix machine that has over 15 years has been stable since day one
Any way i will need pleanty of prof to use that OS, incluing all the new things that they want to do to control my PC… the new famouse Paladin project..
Ok… so it’s got a toolbar/taskbar that’s on the side rather than top or bottom? man… you gotta be kidding me!!! that’s insane innovation…. I haven’t seen that till… windows 95 was it?
Windows has always had the ability to move the taskbar to the left or right. Most people didn’t do it cause it was ugly… but now they’ve gone ahead and made the “default choice” (as they like to call it) for the user. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.
It will be interesting to see the level of DRM in this release. As the author says, “Longhorn is control”… but by what party.
I’m assuming they’ll fix the part where the names of applications and directories/files run right to the edge of the taskbar there. As usual… I’m still hoping they get rid of at least one of the clocks… I just don’t see the need for both digital and analog clocks… particularly right next to each other.
Also… does the slideshow serve any real purpose other than allowing the user to see a couple different images every minute? There are a lot of programs for both Windows and Linux to my knowledge that provide you with the ability to change your background periodically and automatically — wouldn’t it be nicer to do this, rather than focus the images in a small area of the taskbar where they not only take up space but probably distract the user from whatever they are doing? It just seems to me that every time it changed you’d be mentally forced to look at what it changed to and focus your attention to it. How many people actually really LOOK at their background after it’s up. Sure it’s there… but it’s out of focus in your eyesight depending on what window on your desktop your looking… this thing just seems to demand attention.
Overall I think they’ve made a step up from XP in terms of GUI… I’ve not used it so I can’t make any claims on stability, usability, etc… but it looks better than that fisher price thing. However, I also recall that there were quite a few skins for that GUI… I’ll still be hoping there’s the same for this.
This version of Windows looks to show everything to you as a webpage.
Now I think this is an awful interface, but obviously even the project managers of WIndows, KDE, and GNOME feel differently. But it was even showing My Contacts as a webpage.
There is a reason I used Watson and use Sherlock 3, it’s because I hate using a browser for stuff that isn’t a webpage. Just because I get the information off the internet doesn’t mean that I should use a web browser for it. And Longhorn seems to be saying that if you are finding information, Explorer is the way to do it. And I think that sucks.
(Yes, I know they are not actually webpages, but XP and more so Longhorn like to present information to you in the same structure as the WWW)
There is no Longhorn betas *yet*. And besides, the final look for Windows 95 and Windows XP was only shown at the final stages of beta, along with the new brand name (Windows 95, for example, was thought to be, IIRC as Windows 4, Windows XP, IIRC, as Windows 2002 before Microsoft said “no, we decided to confuse consumers more”)
And @technodev: You have obviously no clue what you’re talking about. Your taskbar comparison with Windows 95 is hilarious. The taskbar was never comparable with a toolbar. There were applications like ShellPlayer, but the taskbar was (and is) originally designed to let you switch between your tasks. The author of that text wrote that he prefers the taskbar and the sidebar merged and at the left side. ATM by default the taskbar is at the bottom and the sidebar is on the right side of the screen. Also by default, the sidebar has a clock, and the taskbar has one. If you use both bars, it’s natural to remove one clock. Why didn’t that guy do that? No clue, maybe he doesn’t complain about results of his own choices? He merged taskbar and sidebar, but didn’t disable a clock. That’s not Microsoft’s fault. IMHO you’re exaggerating.
Most things mentioned in the article are easy to do with Win2k. I have my taskbar to the left, with shortcuts to programs and a toolbar that displays the contents of a folder with my current projects. Very efficient.
One thing is interesting though: to integrate a sort of calender in the taskbar. And to recieve e-mails directly to the taskbar. That could be useful and save a sec or two. But I ain´t gonna pay $200+ just for that…
As for the file system: I don’t care how the data is saved as long as I can find and read the information reliably. No problems with the current NTFS. I won’t pay for a new FS either.
I don’t think that those features are really going to affect productivity that much. The author is far to optimistic/naive. Managers and workers are already working at 120% (resulting in burn-outs) and won’t be able to take advantage of a saved second here and there. Because that’s what we are talking about: a second here and there. At most.
“Windows has always had the ability to move the taskbar to the left or right. Most people didn’t do it cause it was ugly… but now they’ve gone ahead and made the “default choice” (as they like to call it) for the user. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.”
By the time they finally figured out that the task bar could be moved (most never did) they were too used to
it’s default position to change it. Inertia rules!
The sleekness of a bottom taskbar comes at the price of
truncated text. Make it fat enough to avoid this and then
voila fulgy is as fugly does.
Personally, I always preferred a side taskbar set to Autohide.If I wanted to see the damn thing I just hit the Windows key.
personally, regardless of the reviews, i prefer 4008 i found it smoother and much easier to install XP drivers to make the system more stable. However, 4015 does have one big plus for those that care, its got IIS 6.5 included all you have to do is install it in add remove windows components in control panels add remove programs applet. Its like IIS 6 in windows 2003 .net server and its nice
This guy sounds like he wants to sell Longhorn, not review it. I am not against Microsoft like many are, and I don’t think that “Linux will have everthing and more and rules and and and and and” (like so many pathetic fanboys who only cream on the same crap all the time), but there is a limit to what I can stand. This was utter crap and a waste of time. I rather listen to M$ own rant about how great things are…
Seems to me that Microsoft are excellent at taking existing ideas from all sources like OSX / Linux etc.. and putting them together in products they sell to the public…
Persoanlly I Prefer Linux/BSD for Servers and OSX.2 / XP For Desktops, Don’t forget a factor in stability is the hardware its running on….
Personally I like the idea of having a ‘task pad’ at the side of the screen with everything accessible…
But I do think the excessive DRM, Activation and £240+ price tags are rediculous, considering other OS’s are catching up….. quickly…….
The OS industry is quickly turning into a Dictatorship… I PAY thousands of pounds for my PC why the hell should I let some rich out of touch idiot who steals ideas and who have yet to develop a Single Operating System by themselves from scratch, tell ME what I CAN and CAN’T Play on MY PC….
KDE 3.x is fantastic but has faults… and OSX is like utopia!! If Apple released Quartz on the x86 platform, M$ should be worried..
All this talk about what the OS looks like is irrelevant. You can add third party “skins” or other add ons to make any Microsoft OS look the way you want. You can set XP to look like win2000 if you want to. And as for the new file system in Longhorn-well its not a new file system at all-its just a way of organising and displaying files. The OS still uses NTFS on the disk.This is just another version of NT with a facelift.
What Microsoft should be doing is making thier OS faster and more memory efficient. Needing 256MB to boot an OS is insane. Take a look at FreeBSD if you want to see how to build a fast and memory efficient OS on Intel hardware.
Microsoft also need to drop thier prices. They could cause serious trouble for Linux if they got rid of the new licensing,halved thier prices and allowed home users to install Windows on 3 PCs.
Here is my analysis: The most fundamental job of the “taskbar” (dock, application menu, etc.) is to show a list of currently running tasks/applications. What should it look like? Mac OS X shows only icons but I think we can agree that text is often necessary for disambiguation. (Try minimizing 10 different folder windows or Word documents in Mac OS X to see what I mean). A typical task description is maybe 20-30 characters long, and there could reasonably be anywhere from 0 to, say, 50 tasks. So our question reduces to: What is the best way to display a list of 0-50 ~25-character strings?
Obviously they should be listed vertically, not horizontally, since otherwise the text gets grossly truncated, as a previous poster pointed out, and as the Windows taskbar illustrates only too well. (See also CDE, KDE, Gnome, IceWM, etc.)
So is the solution to have a “sidebar” a la QNX or by dragging the Windows taskbar to the side? Well, no, those variants grossly waste screen real estate by using the entire side of the screen even when only a small number of tasks are running. Obviously it’s stupid to use more screen real estate than the task list itself occupies.
Far better is the Mac OS 7 application menu, which correctly lists tasks vertically, but only appears on demand, so that no screen real estate is wasted.
Except quite possibly we switch tasks so often that we want to be able to do it with a single click. And we’re willing to spare a little screen real estate (but no more than necessary!) In which case the BeOS DeskBar fits the bill perfectly. Its vertical extent is only that of the task list. I.e. it lives in the upper-right corner and grows and shrinks on demand.
And actually, as long as I can configure whether the DeskBar is “always on top”, I get the best of both worlds: guaranteed clickability when it is on top, maximum screen real estate when it isn’t.
Really this analysis was common sense and should be trivial for any UI designer. It is sad that the only OS’s to provide reasonable task switching widgets are defunct.
They charge too much because they have a monopoly. Economics 101. Is it surprising that people are unhappy about this and express that opinion? Not really.
All the MS defenders (including Eugenia herself) should repond to attacks on MS with SUBSTANCE, i.e., argue that M$ is not charging too much, that they provide value. Instead, since they have no argument, they resort to labeling everyone “bashers” of MS. SUBSTANCE PLEASE, not labels and namecalling of posters. We post something because that’s what we think. If we are wrong, explain how.
1) It’s e.g., not i.e. i.e. is latin for id est, or “that is to say”. e.g. is “for example”. You were stating examples, not restating something a little more clearly.
2) Not even the DOJ economists could prove MS was overcharging for Windows. in fact, Microsoft has dropped the price of Windows with every release, especially considering inflation. Increased functionality in Windows XP, compared previous versions of Windows, add value. All this adds up to more value for less money.
3) With a moniker like appleforever, I’m guessing you’re an Apple user, or you wish you were anyway. Apple hardware is more expensive than the PC hardware and Apple charges for dot releases of OS X as well as upgrades to some of their iLife apps. It always amazes me how the Apple community can cry foul about Microsoft and their little monopoly all the while protecting the little monopoly Apple has created around their closed systems. They have shut down clone makers and are slowly destroying alternate distribution channels by opening Apple Stores all over the place. Apple is certainly in a gray area concerning anti-trust laws and I can’t wait to see the other shoe drop.
If I were to ever use this (which I probably won’t), I hope and pray to God that the Classic theme was still available…
I do like the centred-style taskbar though.
Sadly in the new Office those tubular-toolbars probably won’t be able to be turned off!
I must say I’m impressed with what I’m seeing, but what can I say. The changes are long overdue, and it will only be worse by 2005. I find it hard imagining linux not improving by a vast many times more than windows in that time.
Microsoft has realized that there’s competition, and so they’re finally improving their product. But the fact that it’ll be another two years means they might have lost out.
At the rate open source products are improving, Longhorn will be below the standard upon release.
Seriously, how many times did Microsoft follow the style of their early alpha (not counting interim releases)? Once? Twice? Never? Yeah, never is more like it. Don’t believe? Compare early screenshots of codename Chicago (IIRC, or Memphis) and Windows 95 – stark difference. And early alphas of Whistler and Windows XP – even more stark difference.
—
Beside, the author at the end of the article said Quake is faster on Longhorn than Windows XP – by how much? Benchmarks anyone?
And email from Microsoft reached junkmail. http://www.neowin.net/staff/creamhackered/articles/longhornforyou/o…
Hi All, this is my first post on OsNews
I just read the article and francly i did not find any compeling reason to upgrade.
Microsoft just keep up the same old game adding “features” that look good in the news but lack and actual improvent on the news.
This “features” are really nothing new… are they kidding with me ? for example guys at my work are sooo happy remote acessing with terminal services a windows 2000 advance server 3 or 4 at the same time (it does not give more than 4 at a time) are they kidding with me ??? Unix has this capacity for year and year and has no limit on the amout of users (all depends on the machine), what programs they use etc etc etc.
Microsoft has been for the last year just about marketing and destroying all new idears that pose any problem for them.
They build nothing, they are always changing the rules (their rules). This OS seems like it… all bunch of new code, problably with more and more security problems since it’s new untested code
For me this OS apears to be over cute, and will probably require major hardware upgrades.
I will just remain with Linux for now it’s getting really better on the desktop (has a server it rules) and it’s all about being flexible for the useer, plus it’s STABLE.
has a side joke i really liked the “Administrator” that wrote this article on page 3 :
####################################################
My most favored applications as an admin are Outlook and Word. Don’t know about the rest of the world but I love them to bits. Outlook has this ability to talk to the exchange server and synchronize the mail.
####################################################
What a dick head it apears the System Administrator at my work… that have to do a reboot on our powerfull windows 2000 advanced server cluster every day since the dam thing is very unstable.
Our Unix machine that has over 15 years has been stable since day one
Any way i will need pleanty of prof to use that OS, incluing all the new things that they want to do to control my PC… the new famouse Paladin project..
Stay Well Everyone
Miguel Angelo
Longhorn isn’t so early? And the tubular-toolbars have been in the betas for a while? I could be wrong on the times, however.
Ok… so it’s got a toolbar/taskbar that’s on the side rather than top or bottom? man… you gotta be kidding me!!! that’s insane innovation…. I haven’t seen that till… windows 95 was it?
Windows has always had the ability to move the taskbar to the left or right. Most people didn’t do it cause it was ugly… but now they’ve gone ahead and made the “default choice” (as they like to call it) for the user. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.
It will be interesting to see the level of DRM in this release. As the author says, “Longhorn is control”… but by what party.
I’m assuming they’ll fix the part where the names of applications and directories/files run right to the edge of the taskbar there. As usual… I’m still hoping they get rid of at least one of the clocks… I just don’t see the need for both digital and analog clocks… particularly right next to each other.
Also… does the slideshow serve any real purpose other than allowing the user to see a couple different images every minute? There are a lot of programs for both Windows and Linux to my knowledge that provide you with the ability to change your background periodically and automatically — wouldn’t it be nicer to do this, rather than focus the images in a small area of the taskbar where they not only take up space but probably distract the user from whatever they are doing? It just seems to me that every time it changed you’d be mentally forced to look at what it changed to and focus your attention to it. How many people actually really LOOK at their background after it’s up. Sure it’s there… but it’s out of focus in your eyesight depending on what window on your desktop your looking… this thing just seems to demand attention.
Overall I think they’ve made a step up from XP in terms of GUI… I’ve not used it so I can’t make any claims on stability, usability, etc… but it looks better than that fisher price thing. However, I also recall that there were quite a few skins for that GUI… I’ll still be hoping there’s the same for this.
This version of Windows looks to show everything to you as a webpage.
Now I think this is an awful interface, but obviously even the project managers of WIndows, KDE, and GNOME feel differently. But it was even showing My Contacts as a webpage.
There is a reason I used Watson and use Sherlock 3, it’s because I hate using a browser for stuff that isn’t a webpage. Just because I get the information off the internet doesn’t mean that I should use a web browser for it. And Longhorn seems to be saying that if you are finding information, Explorer is the way to do it. And I think that sucks.
(Yes, I know they are not actually webpages, but XP and more so Longhorn like to present information to you in the same structure as the WWW)
Why didn’t he talk about the new exiting features that comes with the Digital Restrictions Management in Longhorn?
There is no Longhorn betas *yet*. And besides, the final look for Windows 95 and Windows XP was only shown at the final stages of beta, along with the new brand name (Windows 95, for example, was thought to be, IIRC as Windows 4, Windows XP, IIRC, as Windows 2002 before Microsoft said “no, we decided to confuse consumers more”)
Because they’re not implemented yet?
And @technodev: You have obviously no clue what you’re talking about. Your taskbar comparison with Windows 95 is hilarious. The taskbar was never comparable with a toolbar. There were applications like ShellPlayer, but the taskbar was (and is) originally designed to let you switch between your tasks. The author of that text wrote that he prefers the taskbar and the sidebar merged and at the left side. ATM by default the taskbar is at the bottom and the sidebar is on the right side of the screen. Also by default, the sidebar has a clock, and the taskbar has one. If you use both bars, it’s natural to remove one clock. Why didn’t that guy do that? No clue, maybe he doesn’t complain about results of his own choices? He merged taskbar and sidebar, but didn’t disable a clock. That’s not Microsoft’s fault. IMHO you’re exaggerating.
Most things mentioned in the article are easy to do with Win2k. I have my taskbar to the left, with shortcuts to programs and a toolbar that displays the contents of a folder with my current projects. Very efficient.
One thing is interesting though: to integrate a sort of calender in the taskbar. And to recieve e-mails directly to the taskbar. That could be useful and save a sec or two. But I ain´t gonna pay $200+ just for that…
As for the file system: I don’t care how the data is saved as long as I can find and read the information reliably. No problems with the current NTFS. I won’t pay for a new FS either.
I don’t think that those features are really going to affect productivity that much. The author is far to optimistic/naive. Managers and workers are already working at 120% (resulting in burn-outs) and won’t be able to take advantage of a saved second here and there. Because that’s what we are talking about: a second here and there. At most.
You’re right.
some usability improvements, some steps backwards, some DRM, some activation…
He said he was using Word2003 to type the article, because he can’t spell or something like that… he missed a number of grammatical things…
“Windows has always had the ability to move the taskbar to the left or right. Most people didn’t do it cause it was ugly… but now they’ve gone ahead and made the “default choice” (as they like to call it) for the user. It will be interesting to see how that pans out.”
By the time they finally figured out that the task bar could be moved (most never did) they were too used to
it’s default position to change it. Inertia rules!
The sleekness of a bottom taskbar comes at the price of
truncated text. Make it fat enough to avoid this and then
voila fulgy is as fugly does.
Personally, I always preferred a side taskbar set to Autohide.If I wanted to see the damn thing I just hit the Windows key.
have a look if you want
4008 > http://anyweb.kicks-ass.net/index_l.html
4015 > http://anyweb.kicks-ass.net/lh4015/index.html
personally, regardless of the reviews, i prefer 4008 i found it smoother and much easier to install XP drivers to make the system more stable. However, 4015 does have one big plus for those that care, its got IIS 6.5 included all you have to do is install it in add remove windows components in control panels add remove programs applet. Its like IIS 6 in windows 2003 .net server and its nice
cheers
anyweb
This guy sounds like he wants to sell Longhorn, not review it. I am not against Microsoft like many are, and I don’t think that “Linux will have everthing and more and rules and and and and and” (like so many pathetic fanboys who only cream on the same crap all the time), but there is a limit to what I can stand. This was utter crap and a waste of time. I rather listen to M$ own rant about how great things are…
“I rather listen to M$ own rant about how great things are…”
I can’t believe there are still people in this day and age who type “M$” and don’t realize how hilarious and immature it is.
If anything is hilarious and immature, it’s how they charge hundreds of dollars for poorly written, unstable and insecure software.
Hence the $.
Seems to me that Microsoft are excellent at taking existing ideas from all sources like OSX / Linux etc.. and putting them together in products they sell to the public…
Persoanlly I Prefer Linux/BSD for Servers and OSX.2 / XP For Desktops, Don’t forget a factor in stability is the hardware its running on….
Personally I like the idea of having a ‘task pad’ at the side of the screen with everything accessible…
But I do think the excessive DRM, Activation and £240+ price tags are rediculous, considering other OS’s are catching up….. quickly…….
The OS industry is quickly turning into a Dictatorship… I PAY thousands of pounds for my PC why the hell should I let some rich out of touch idiot who steals ideas and who have yet to develop a Single Operating System by themselves from scratch, tell ME what I CAN and CAN’T Play on MY PC….
KDE 3.x is fantastic but has faults… and OSX is like utopia!! If Apple released Quartz on the x86 platform, M$ should be worried..
“If anything is hilarious and immature, it’s how they charge hundreds of dollars for poorly written, unstable and insecure software.”
windows can be cool ya know 😉
http://internet.ls-la.net/ms-evolution/windows-1.01/
Like windoze 95 and NT 4.0 every OS from M$ has a lotta hype
in reality it will be a nitemare to keep it up.
We are all very tired of M$ marketing and hollow promises.
That there isn’t hardly any useful comments so far. Everything is just plain dumb – and already proven wrong in other older similar thread.
All this talk about what the OS looks like is irrelevant. You can add third party “skins” or other add ons to make any Microsoft OS look the way you want. You can set XP to look like win2000 if you want to. And as for the new file system in Longhorn-well its not a new file system at all-its just a way of organising and displaying files. The OS still uses NTFS on the disk.This is just another version of NT with a facelift.
What Microsoft should be doing is making thier OS faster and more memory efficient. Needing 256MB to boot an OS is insane. Take a look at FreeBSD if you want to see how to build a fast and memory efficient OS on Intel hardware.
Microsoft also need to drop thier prices. They could cause serious trouble for Linux if they got rid of the new licensing,halved thier prices and allowed home users to install Windows on 3 PCs.
Just my 2 cents
Here is my analysis: The most fundamental job of the “taskbar” (dock, application menu, etc.) is to show a list of currently running tasks/applications. What should it look like? Mac OS X shows only icons but I think we can agree that text is often necessary for disambiguation. (Try minimizing 10 different folder windows or Word documents in Mac OS X to see what I mean). A typical task description is maybe 20-30 characters long, and there could reasonably be anywhere from 0 to, say, 50 tasks. So our question reduces to: What is the best way to display a list of 0-50 ~25-character strings?
Obviously they should be listed vertically, not horizontally, since otherwise the text gets grossly truncated, as a previous poster pointed out, and as the Windows taskbar illustrates only too well. (See also CDE, KDE, Gnome, IceWM, etc.)
So is the solution to have a “sidebar” a la QNX or by dragging the Windows taskbar to the side? Well, no, those variants grossly waste screen real estate by using the entire side of the screen even when only a small number of tasks are running. Obviously it’s stupid to use more screen real estate than the task list itself occupies.
Far better is the Mac OS 7 application menu, which correctly lists tasks vertically, but only appears on demand, so that no screen real estate is wasted.
Except quite possibly we switch tasks so often that we want to be able to do it with a single click. And we’re willing to spare a little screen real estate (but no more than necessary!) In which case the BeOS DeskBar fits the bill perfectly. Its vertical extent is only that of the task list. I.e. it lives in the upper-right corner and grows and shrinks on demand.
And actually, as long as I can configure whether the DeskBar is “always on top”, I get the best of both worlds: guaranteed clickability when it is on top, maximum screen real estate when it isn’t.
Really this analysis was common sense and should be trivial for any UI designer. It is sad that the only OS’s to provide reasonable task switching widgets are defunct.
-Jeremy
They charge too much because they have a monopoly. Economics 101. Is it surprising that people are unhappy about this and express that opinion? Not really.
All the MS defenders (including Eugenia herself) should repond to attacks on MS with SUBSTANCE, i.e., argue that M$ is not charging too much, that they provide value. Instead, since they have no argument, they resort to labeling everyone “bashers” of MS. SUBSTANCE PLEASE, not labels and namecalling of posters. We post something because that’s what we think. If we are wrong, explain how.
Thank you.
And i suppose apple doesn’t charge too much appleforever.
1) It’s e.g., not i.e. i.e. is latin for id est, or “that is to say”. e.g. is “for example”. You were stating examples, not restating something a little more clearly.
2) Not even the DOJ economists could prove MS was overcharging for Windows. in fact, Microsoft has dropped the price of Windows with every release, especially considering inflation. Increased functionality in Windows XP, compared previous versions of Windows, add value. All this adds up to more value for less money.
3) With a moniker like appleforever, I’m guessing you’re an Apple user, or you wish you were anyway. Apple hardware is more expensive than the PC hardware and Apple charges for dot releases of OS X as well as upgrades to some of their iLife apps. It always amazes me how the Apple community can cry foul about Microsoft and their little monopoly all the while protecting the little monopoly Apple has created around their closed systems. They have shut down clone makers and are slowly destroying alternate distribution channels by opening Apple Stores all over the place. Apple is certainly in a gray area concerning anti-trust laws and I can’t wait to see the other shoe drop.
Yeah read it and weep fools!