Ahh gee... now all those poor school kids are going to get stuck with Vista.

There go the standardized test scores...

Linux KDE/X with Star Office is a real alternative and was multi-processing 20 years before Microsoft Win98. It's compatible with MS-Office, is free, and legal!!
Anyway, choices exist.

This is rediculous. If you don't like their software don't buy it.

There is a reason why this happens, to you who thinks this is stupid. Microsoft of course can't demand reasonable price. Look at Vista 400 bucks for what? Update ICONS and then they quit updating other stuff. Easy to say if you are a computer nerd and know linux ect but if you are a school kid ect and have never been exposed to anything else because Microsoft unduely used its influence to sell to the school then how can you say don't buy it. Man dude, you wouldn't be a cop would you? You should about as short sighted as one.

i see monopolies every single day.

apple ship's it's computers with Ilife, software that would make other programs on apple useless. the same thing ms was hauled to court for doing years and years back, packing in software.

itunes can only be used with the ipod... you buy the songs and can never use another brand of media player.

Oil companies constantly create artificial bottle-necks in supply so they can quadruple our oil prices....

i just don't understand. i see monopolies every single fucking day, and yet it seems like it's just microsoft that gets slapped around.

Like gahleon stated Vista for $400.
Goto your local software store and check out the price of Windows XP Pro you will still pay $299 for a full verson. If it were anyother program it would be discounted to like $99 for the full verson. I remember when XP came out and I was wanting to get a replacement copy of 98SE for a older system and keeping an eye on the price. For 2 years after XP came out 98SE was still selling for $199 for the full verson. That would be like going and buying DOOM for the same price as DOOM 3 when it first came out.

I had said it before and i will say it again Microsoft had better be lucky that the goverment doesn't say to software makers that they must support mutiple platforms in the same box(i.e. buy a game and have it support Windows, Apple OS and Linux). The only thing that I see thats realy stopping Linux is that theres to many flavors of it(i.e. Red Hat, Debian, Slackware and Fedora), so installing a program for Linux is not just simply downloading and installing but makeing sure you have a verson for the Linux Core you are running.

If there was one verson of the Linux Core and if software install was made easier(it has become much easier in the past few years but still has a way to go). I think that Linux could become a major player in the OS market.

And the largest problem is, in the office place, windows is the main thing. You can bring a mac to an all windows shop and expect it to get along( i own 2 macs btw)