Let me see if I’ve got this straight.  Bill Gates wants people to spend $3 to buy a stripped-down version of a soon-to-be-obsoleted operating system when these same people can spend $0 to install any number of Linux packages that are fully-functional, regularly updated by skilled developers, and can run a veritable plethora of free or low-cost software.

Not to mention the savings these same people will enjoy by not having to pony up for expensive anti-virus software and high-end hardware to run the memory-greedy XP.

Slimy.
Sounds like they are getting desperate, with Apple’s Mac OS X continuing to gain market share, hot on Microsoft’s heels.

Wasn’t Billy Gates on Capitol Hill recently persuading lawmakers to ordain unlimited H-1B visas so he could replace his pricey MS workforce with twopenny foreign workers? Seems we Yanks and Euros are just expected to render world prosperity via exported j-o-b-s and, masked by extensive c-r-e-d-i-t, overpriced goods.

Besides, $3 is too much when you can download Vista Ultimate, XP Professional and Office Professional (with crack) for free or register them on foreign computers. Can’t you buy these for $1 on the streets of China?

This is my experience with up grades from Microsoft. XP was supposed to support previous software and hardware. In fact it destroys the software to properly run hardware and refuses to run many software programs. This was deliberate to force people to buy new software, even though the old worked well. I wouldn’t buy Vista and wouldn’t run it if they gave it to me.

Let Bill Gates spend some of his billions to fix the disaster of his design. Every day I have to pay a ransom to run my internet connection and fend off the weakness designed into the system. What motive have they to clean it up when they make billions, but not fixing the problems?