[Da Coyote]

As much as I am an apple fanboy due to Microsoft’s unmatched awfulness through the years, I’ll be ready to go back to MS if they concentrate on giving the customer good sw and hw and get out of giving money to the gubmit for graft and corruption.

Oh, and keep their opinions about the sexual preferences of their staff and company to themselves, unlike a certain competitor.

[OneWingedShark]

I’ll be ready to go back to MS if they concentrate on giving the customer good sw and hw and get out of giving money to the gubmit for graft and corruption.

MS has done some research into using formal methods to create an OS [paper] — granted it's limited, but it's a good first-step to getting a full general-purpose OS built with formal methods — using such formal methods would eliminate whole classes of bugs and bring a much more stable and secure system.

I think the first company to make a full formally verified OS will have a huge edge on competitors. (I think the same holds true for word-processing/office-suites, to a lesser degree.)

[Mariner]

Take it from somebody who worked on the Redmond campus to help MS "eat heir won dogfood".

Their culture is not one of change. There's a way things are done and that's it.