Let's see - none of the notorious product activation (which will more than
likely turn into a licensing scheme), none of the pervasive, hard-sell
requests to get a Microsoft Passport, and fewer of the leveraged
associations to Microsoft and its partners. XP is Microsoft's biggest
attempt yet to leverage it's OS *** into media and ecommerce of every
kind. Every time you shop over the Internet, buy music, access news, view
media, etc, Microsoft wants a fee. That's not about to happen yet, but it is
most certainly their plan.
As for 2k being poor with games, I haven't yet encountered any problems. I'm
sure there are one or two examples that exist, but I am happy to forego them
in order to avoid subjecting my wallet, privacy, etc. to Microsoft's
control. I won't even repeat their security track record.
The biggest joke is that they're advertising the product by hyping it's
features such as "sending pictures all around the world", CD burning, movie
editing - all stuff that can be handled (more than likely better) by
existing applications. Maybe they should advertise the product activation
"features", too - I'm sure that would have consumers thrilled.
Maybe this is all a bit too ***-theory-ish, but personally I don't
think it's very far off the mark. To cap it all, the OS isn't exactly cheap,
and the Home edition is crippled to prevent it from logging on to Win2k or
Professional networks. Basically, MS is doing everything to protect its
revenue stream, and actually very little (bar more bells and whistles) for
its consumers who have been loyally turning it into the one of the richest
companies in the world.
As for me, I am fully intending that Win2k is my last MS purchase, unless
they radically change their tack. Right now I am putting together a dual
boot system with Linux and will make every effort to run as much as possible
under Linux. Already there are office suites (e.g. OpenOffice), web
browsers, email clients, databases, development tools, etc. for Linux. Games
will be the very last applications that require MS's bloatware OS's. Maybe
I'll end up with a PS2 (or whatever it's successor will be) for games, and a
Linux machine for everything else . . .
Read CNET's coverage for more info:
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Ryan
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