I don't. We're talking about microsoft here.
awesome storyImagine a crossroads where four competing auto dealerships aresituated. One of them (Microsoft) is much, much bigger than the others.It started out years ago selling three-speed bicycles (MS-DOS); thesewere not perfect, but they worked, and when they broke you could easilyfix them.
There was a competing bicycle dealership next door(Apple) that one day began selling motorized vehicles--expensive butattractively styled cars with their innards hermetically sealed, sothat how they worked was something of a mystery.
The bigdealership responded by rushing a moped upgrade kit (the originalWindows) onto the market. This was a Rube Goldberg contraption that,when bolted onto a three-speed bicycle, enabled it to keep up, justbarely, with Apple-cars. The users had to wear goggles and were alwayspicking bugs out of their teeth while Apple owners sped along inhermetically sealed comfort, sneering out the windows. But theMicro-mopeds were cheap, and easy to fix compared with the Apple-cars,and their market share waxed.
Eventually the big dealership cameout with a full-fledged car: a colossal station wagon (Windows 95). Ithad all the aesthetic appeal of a Soviet worker housing block, itleaked oil and blew gaskets, and it was an enormous success. A littlelater, they also came out with a hulking off-road vehicle intended forindustrial users (Windows NT) which was no more beautiful than thestation wagon, and only a little more reliable.
Since then therehas been a lot of noise and shouting, but little has changed. Thesmaller dealership continues to sell sleek Euro-styled sedans and tospend a lot of money on advertising campaigns. They have had GOING OUTOF BUSINESS! signs taped up in their windows for so long that they havegotten all yellow and curly. The big one keeps making bigger and biggerstation wagons and ORVs.
On the other side of the road are two competitors that have come along more recently.
One of them (Be, Inc.) is selling fully operational Batmobiles (theBeOS). They are more beautiful and stylish even than the Euro-sedans,better designed, more technologically advanced, and at least asreliable as anything else on the market--and yet cheaper than theothers.
With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right nextdoor, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts,tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized byconsensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are notold-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanksof the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed withsophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are betterthan Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never,ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinarystreets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks arebeing cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast numberof them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in theignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it awayfor free.
Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day andnight. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership andbuy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at theother dealerships.
Of the remaining ten percent, most go and buya sleek Euro-sedan, pausing only to turn up their noses at thephilistines going to buy the station wagons and ORVs. If they evennotice the people on the opposite side of the road, selling thecheaper, technically superior vehicles, these customers deride themcranks and half-wits.
The Batmobile outlet sells a few vehiclesto the occasional car nut who wants a second vehicle to go with hisstation wagon, but seems to accept, at least for now, that it's afringe player.
The group giving away the free tanks only staysalive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edgeof the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention tothis incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something likethis:
Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks!It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninetymiles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!"
Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!"
Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!"
Buyer:"But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrongwith my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, andpay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours,listening to elevator music."
Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!"
Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!"
Bullhorn: "But..."
Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
QUOTE
Well IE users can just get the Google Toolbar for no popups or they can just get Service Pack 2 with that built in popup blocker and virus protector. No need for a new browser smile.gif .
That's even a worse reason to get IE.