[CLUE-Tech] Yet another reason to use Linux exCLUEsively

[grant]

> Unfortunately, Microsoft has been relatively successful at convincing
> people that they "need" to upgrade - and, of course, if they can't
> persuade you to upgrade they'll simply make future versions incompatible.
> I can't blame Microsoft entirely for that, though - the other software
> vendors like Adobe and Macromedia (notice that the list gets shorter
> every year?) also like to keep people on the upgrade cycle. 
> 
> At the rate that Microsoft is alienating their users, partners and
> OEM customers I wouldn't be surprised to see Linux and the Mac OS gain
> a huge chunk of the desktop market two years from now. I still wish
> someone would put out a decent Linux-based appliance for email,
> browsing and word processing so I could buy one for my Mom & grandparents...
> 
Right now, MS's biggest competitor in the Office Suite space is
themselves.  Office 2000 is scheduled to stop production in about a month,
making XP the only shipping version, but over 60% are using either Office
95 or 97.  That means that 98, 2K, and Xp, the three most current versions
are in the high 30% range.  They have lost the ability to convince people
to upgrade for features, and 98-XP have one file format for Word, so
planned obsolecence are less of an issue.  This has hurt revenue streams.