From: synth.virtuoso@gmail.com   
      
   Sure, Microsoft was the big bad monopoly years ago and something had to be   
   done.  Whatever; I guess I get that.  Believe it or not I think there's value   
   in having competition in the industry.  We have it in the form of OS X, and   
   open-source alternatives    
   such as Linux.   
      
   And then something interesting happened.  Avenues opened up for other forms of   
   computing, like mobile, where Microsoft's competitors took advantage of the   
   head start and ended up carving a dominant space.  Seems like Microsoft was   
   late.  Now both iOS and    
   Android are huge, and Windows Phone only holds a very small share of the   
   market.  iPads are all over the place.  Chromebooks are becoming more popular.   
      
   Yep, the thinking was that if we split Microsoft up, a benevolent alternative   
   was going to fill the gap that would do us no wrong and would exhibit none of   
   the bullying behavior that Microsoft committed.   
      
   And what does this new entity end up doing?  It becomes an institution that   
   markets an operating system behind a spam and advertising machine, where your   
   privacy takes a back seat.   
      
   And we wanted it, didn't we?  I've read people make statements online claiming   
   things such as, "Oh, I don't buy the argument that if it wasn't Microsoft   
   screwing us, somebody else would."   
      
   Don't buy that, eh?   
      
   Chew on this for a while.  And if you want to blast me with accusations of   
   hypocrisy, go ahead, because in addition to using Google's search engine   
   regularly (well, Bing too -- I like it just as much and am using it more and   
   more) as well as having a    
   Gmail account, I also own a Google Nexus 7 tablet in addition to my Windows   
   machines (which I really like, by the way -- Lollipop is nice).   
      
   Oh, I almost forgot.  This is *also* in addition to my Mac mini.  I pride   
   myself on my open-mindedness, unlike others who bash Microsoft to no end and   
   don't care about MY needs.   
      
   --   
   Erich K.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)