[ Thanks to Nathan
Savasis for this link. ]
“XP really changes the dynamics of the competitive
landscape. First of all, with XP Windows loses its long-time
advantage in relation to the availability of hardware drivers, as
well as other software packages. Second, the increased cost and
decreased performance will persuade many IT departments to consider
their alternatives more closely. Third, the increasing lack of user
freedom and choice in the successive Windows releases will convince
those who value freedom and choice to switch to an open,
customizable system like Linux/KDE.Regarding the .NET strategy, it really is too early to say much
about it. The details are not there, nor are the products. But what
it appears to be, in essence, is a Java replacement, with the Java
bytecode replaced with a different bytecode. However, unlike Java,
.NET is not an open platform, most notably because from all
appearances Microsoft intends to hobble it with proprietary,
patented technologies.Therefore, we can hope to find allies from all the companies —
from IBM to Sun on the vendor side to a broad spectrum of
enterprises on the client side — that have a significant Java
investment and that are not ready to drop it so Microsoft can
monopolize yet another technology. We can also hope to find allies
in the world’s development community, particularly with recent
studies indicating that 60% of the world’s software developers are
proficient in Java.”