if it wasn't for a single program (MS office) i would still have Linux systems running in this house but moving to OS X has surprised me as i have had no hiccups whatsoever with it and all the family just uses it without any problems
so yes MS has a few competitors that are going to take their market share and the simple fact is the only windows in this house are fitted in the walls and that suits me …

Agreed, OpenOffice is good, but it still isn't a realistic replacement for MS Office for large documents or sharing documents with MS Office users. It is also very light on features. It is gaining with each new iteration, but it is still playing catchup.

iWork is pretty dire too. It's rather tempting to buy Office 2008 (Mac), or wait for Win7 and use bootcamp - but the latter just to use Office 2007 seems like overkill.

Microsoft under threat [full stop!].

From everyone! Google, Linux, and Apple all want a slice. They're all growing too, and at the moment Microsoft don't seem to be able to stop the rot.

When you're the top dog the only way to go is down.

Yip, sat on their arse for years with almost every aspect of their business interests bar the Xbox, far as I can tell...

Well I have a few things to say on this.

To be honest... I don't think Linux is much of a threat for the casual computer user. Look at the sales of Netbooks and the continuation of the sale of Xp shows how much people want a familiar operating system. People would rather return a netbook with linux then buy one with xp than learn to use linux.

I CAN see the prospective threat from client side in terms of terminal solutions, but as far as the main market (businesses) it's not a huge threat because of dependency on Office and similar windows software.

A lot of the 'problems' currently with the browser market is MS are a monopoly, as such they arttract a lot of attention, which is a good and bad thing. In a good thing there is the popularity over some products, and promotions such as the i'm a pc, you find it you keep it ads...one of which was withdrawn after a snivelling call from a senior Apple member of staff as they sell a cheaper notebook now.

MS haven't really been sitting on their backsides. MS encompasses a huge range of products, from gaming and mobile telephony to in car technology and television supply systems. There isn't any company that does as much (and for a lot of it without branding as the name isn't on a lot of the stuff but the suppliers request it now as a sign of the quality for customers) and remain as close to the cutting edge. Not to mention things like Natal and MS research facilities

The reason the return rate for Linux netbooks is so high is because people are too ignorant/lazy/stupid to learn something else.

People who come to appreciate UNIX and UNIX-like OSes and the way they do things rarely, if ever, go back to using Windows.

Possibly my favourite example of why Linux is superior, yes I said superior, to Windows is this...on a default Ubuntu installation most, if not all hardware works as desired straight away. A default XP installation gets me something akin 800x600 resolution and [LIFTED] all wireless connectivity, no printer etc etc.

OMG, did Finlay actually just say that MS software/hardware is cutting-edge? Is today April 1?

Those ads with the people with 'prior acting experience' you mean?

To be fair, you're comparing (I'm assuming) a recent Ubuntu edition with an OS that originally came out eight years ago. For a fairer comparison, go get yourself a 2001 linux distro, let us know how you get on with that.

I've been dabbling with Linux off and on for about ten years now, and I still keep going back to MS. The first time I tried it (Red Hat), I spent hours and hours just getting a useable desktop, then got bored after playing a few games on it, and discovered there was nothing I wanted to do on it that I couldn't do in about a tenth of the time on Windows. I've tried every year or two since then, and it's definitely getting better every time. But I still keep finding myself having to dual boot back to Windows to do bits and pieces, so I think 'Why bother?' and just stick with MS stuff.

The time will no doubt come when Linux is an acceptable OS for me for day to day use, and at that point I'll probably switch. Until then, I'll stick with Windows.

I don't think Linux is much of a threat yet either, but it's definitely getting there. The problem I found was continually having to do 'research' just to get things explained and to generally 'work' - I just didn't have the patience, which means Joe Average certainly won't

All that said, Ubuntu (for instance) is definitely 'coming along'...

I appreciate they have a huge range of products, and believe that creates it's own problems in a way, but some of the things they let slide were just silly. Anything to do with the net for one thing - IE itself, Hotmail, MSN...

I'd be the first to say that part of their problem is their own strong product foundations, essentially competing with themselves when trying to introduce something new - Vista, Office '07 etc. But that's precisely why they should have had everything squared away as much as possible; the development of Vista reads horribly for instance, especially from a company where that must be it's main revenue source

They seem to have the right idea with 'Doze 7 I have to say, but even that strikes me as what Vista should have been...

As I've said before I've never had OpenOffice fail me, though I've probably only gone up to somewhere near 500 pages. And for a typical user (probably anyone who hasn't done an actual course in MS Word (and generally school/collage doesn't count here)) the features are probably adequate. As for sharing, ask the person your sharing with to download OpenOffice, it won't cost them



All of iWork!? Pages and Numbers are dreadful, but I do think Keynote is just about the best presentation application I've come across.

We can al see how good Linux is for the average person by how they are the biggrst seller of OS. LOL