[rdb3]

If Windows disappeared tonight, it would be the death of the entire industry, and that's not because it's some imaginary "monopoly". It's because there's simply nothing else in its class, period.

That's an atrocious insult to all IT professionals (like myself) the world over.There's nothing wrong with having a preference for Microsoft's products (hence my disagreement over Microsoft with Dominic Harr), but it's an entirely different ballgame when you start speaking like you are on Microsoft's payroll.

I'd bet a penny to a $20 dollar bill that if (which won't happen) Microsoft went away overnight, the industry will see innovation like it has never seen before. That huge market gap must be filled, and there are more than enough savvry tech-people around the world to ensure that it will be filled. Again, the free market will absolutely demand that it be filled.

Period.

[Don Joe]

"That's an atrocious insult to all IT professionals (like myself) the world over."

No, it's reality, and if you either live in such a cloistered environment that you can't recognize it, or else personalize it because you won't face it, that changes nothing. Facts are immune to all external forces.