[Ti] [OT] Micro$oft acquires Virtual PC

[b]

According to Robert Ameeti:

>  >So, users would buy an old 386 to run Win2k, already installed.
>
>Huh? Since when do companies buy old computers for their employees?


The original poster referred to HIS need to grab email off a Black 
Ice setup, hardly an excuse to buy a new PC. The original poster 
wasn't referring to a corporate purchase of an installation, at all.

I can grab that mail with the 286MMX emulator [VPC, in other words] 
running 95 or 98. As for companies, they buy 'buck-a-day' IBM 
terminals for their 'employees'. Any Mac user who has popped into a 
Network running low-RAM IBMs at the desktop, KNOWS the meaning of the 
term DOG.

>  > How's that going to aid MS in any way? They don't give a s**t 
>which 'box' you run their stuff on.
>
>Oh but they do. They want all their users to be running XP. MS loves 
>standardization that can be monitored and controlled. They are then 
>allowed to dictate that your purchase of XP will only run on that 
>single machine instead of being shared between your home and office 
>machine, etc.

The only reason even more of the installed Windows base, ISN'T 
running 98, or Win2k, is because the machines, themselves, with their 
razor-thin fault tolerance parts, and totally 'commodity' driven 
[i.e. cheap] parts, assembly [engineering, in other words] break down 
so fast, newer boxes are a necessity. And because MS illegally 
leveraged their market dominance, the PC manufacturers have risked a 
flirtation with bankruptcy to even think out loud about offering 
anything except what MS wants to have ported on new boxes.

I can run 95, 98, 2k, and XP on my VPC. Try loading OS 6, 7, 8,  [or 
even 9 as a 'bootable' system] on a brand new Mac these days, and see 
how far it gets. Then get back to me on who exerts 'control' over 
what users run on their own machines.

>  >Besides, Apple isn't competition to monopolistic MS. MS owns a 
>piece of Apple.
>
>Woah. Where have you been? They sold that stock a long time ago, 
>making a decent profit along the way.

MS execs have been big purchasers of Apple stock right up through the 
end of the Nineties. But everyone with any brains sold tech stocks 
right around the time the talks between AOL and TimeWarner were 
announced.

Microsoft 'Insiders', the men and women on the inside at the upper 
echelon of MS management have been net sellers of their own stock 
during the last year. [putting it mildly]. Of the 103 trades reported 
to the SEC, all but two [2] were Sells. And the buys? One guy, buying 
a grand total of 1200 shares, in two separate purchases. Whoop-de-doo.

Year-to-date, of the shares of Apple, Dell, Microsoft, and IBM, all 
are 'under water', except Apple [which is barely above water, but 
still, making something is always preferable to losing anything].

~flipper