With a 90% installed base there’s just no real reason for MS to even try. And the educational system in the U.S. continues to exclusively crank out Windows only IT pros who only do Windows. MS does not even have to try and this is the one and only reason Ballmer gets to keep being the desktop bully that he literally portrays himself to be.

Even Apple has essentially given up really competing with MS and this is pretty clear by the fact that their desktop lineup really gets to be less and less desktop oriented, and there very good but short-lived foray into enterprise-class server gear was, well – short lived, also indicates that they long ago gave up really competing with MS’s desktop products.

The only reason MS even makes these loud-mouthed but half-hearted stabs at competing in the portable OS marketplace is to be sure that, a hundred years from now they still have a foothold in that marketplace.

If nobody is really going to go after MS’s desktop and enterprise products why do we all waste time wringing our hands over Ballmer and Windows – it’s a moot point. MS can stick any buffoon in there as the top dog – it simply doesn’t matter.

I received a clean bill of health from my doctors at the VA today, got a flu shot, and a refill on my Hindu Kush that should last a couple of weeks.

Thanksgiving’s around the corner and I say tuck furkey and go prime rib and Martinis!

Because without a foil in Microsoft, MDN couldn’t even keep the first 8 commenters entertained long enough to make any money.

So how long will Steve Jack continue to play the “We like your strategy. We like it a lot.” game once news of a computer coming out of Redmond hits The Street?

I predict a Microsoft Windows computer will turn their glacially slow stock into an even bigger Dow juggernaut.

The only question that remains for me at this point is, what will Microsoft call their first desktop computer that bears a single tiny Windows logo on the face of it, and nothing more?

Besides Shit, what would you call it?

Microsoft’s chumming the waters, to see if any sharks from Justice surface.

A Microsoft moving towards hardware should have had a greater impact on Steve Jack than his typical rearrange-the-deck-chair humor poking fun at a retard in Microsoft.

Yer first 8 comments are typical fanboy knee-jerk reactions to whatever is stated in the MDNT. Today, SJ phoned in his response before turning it over to the “first post!” crowd, who typically pollutes the air with brain farts.

But, let’s look at what’s missing; anything meaningful.

Nevertheless, Microsoft is changing their business model, and after years of sampling their productive efforts to solidify the XBox platform, they will now do for their company what Steve Jobs did for Apple when he changed the company’s focus and name to Apple, Inc.

Microsoft COULD BE poised to create a vertical computer market, to not only compete directly with Apple’s Macintosh, but one that will attempt to mirror the halo effect of the Mac platform, and XBox is an excellent start.

I say could be because we are talking about Steve Ballmer after all, but, in my vision, Wired breaks the news of a hardware computer bearing a Microsoft logo that contains XBox and Kinnect and IPTV and Dashboard all running on PowerPC architecture.

The fact is, and this is the most salient point, I’ve just described the typical XBox home set up and the only difference between that home server set up and a world in which Microsoft delivers its very first computer is, the decision to rename XBox, Windows Computer, and eventually, just Windows.

When Microsoft hand-builds white boxes to look like Alienware computers, the world will finally have its epiphany; Microsoft has become Apple’s vertical market nemesis, challenging Macintosh for supreme ownership of the desktop.

The Microsoft PC will finally achieve what no manufacturer has been able to duplicate in Macintosh. You read that hear first.

I saw the writing on the wall in the late Nineties, when Adobe embraced Microsoft and delivered graphics to Windows users. Deke McClelland was all over that like stink on shit; he saw a great opportunity to transform his vast graphics knowledge into syllabi to train the Windows unwashed. Lynda dot Com capitalized immediately as did others. I’m in that camp.

I’ll admit, I took advantage of my own Mac experience, but rather than spend another twenty-years making millions teaching Windows users to embrace the “force” of a vertical market, I have no intention of ever buying a Windows Computer.

XBox is a proven 10-year-old platform that does so much well, I’m convinced it is the real unsung story coming out of a company who has failed so often in big ways, they’re way over due.

When XBox becomes Windows™ the PC, I’ll be here to mitigate the hardy laughter coming from the likes of Thurrott, Dvorak, and that other fuckin’ loser who runs an analyst firm from the spare bedroom of his house.

Forget about Justice and monopolies and legalities, Microsoft will build a computer and will gladly jeopardize partnerships with the PC manufacturers, because Micro$oft will continue to ship dumbed-down versions of Windows to them; replete with advertising but hey!, it will be free.

Microsoft will finally have admitted, Steve Jobs’s vertical business model was the right approach all along and that Microsoft wasted twenty-five-years pretending Apple wasn’t influencing everything they did.

A Microsoft emboldened by the unfurling of a Windows Computer that is second only to Macintosh, will become yet another marvelous example of American ingenuity and poison any notion of a foreign-born OS worming its way into our culture.

Go America!

ppctyler, I have shit stains in my underwear older than you.

Give em a little credit for XBox. After dumping billions into the platform, it’s turned out pretty decent and once Microsoft figures out how to stuff XBox into a PC, they’ll slap their name on it and change everything.

HP and Dell would realize the greatest impact and in all likelihood, Dell would file for bankruptcy.

HP would embrace Linux or drop desktops altogether.

I like XBox now and I bought one of the first Microsoft wireless mouses on the market that I still have in a drawer (screw batteries!) somewhere and I hear their keyboards have been pretty decent too.

XBox is almost a perfect game console now.

As long as it takes, right?

And college dorms across the nation are full of passed out kids who have succumbed to the Steve Ballmer Innovation drinking game.

Everyone makes money off Microsoft and I say there are at least a billion people who are using M$ software to exploit everything everywhere all day long.

You want to argue? Fine but don’t insult my intelligence with your limp-wristed psychobabble.

But I think they’ve put the RRoD to bed. As for the Blue Screen, I couldn’t tell you. I’ve haven’t seen one since I left the workforce in 1994. However, I did see one during the Beijing Olympics on the stadium jumbotron. that was hilarious!

HEY! BOK FLOKS CLOCKS!

One of these days, a turd will stick, and then watch Microsoft gloat. Man, they’ll take gloating to a whole ‘nuther level. In fact, the gloating will become so obnoxious, it will rub off on their customers.

Samsung television-commercial-actors are enjoying their presence in the market right now with their butt-bumping phones and action like that bothers some Apple people, like hannahjs and zeke and a few other romantics around here.

You ain’t seen nothing yet. Microsoft will experience a reversal of fortunes in the desktop market place and none of us will be able to live with them!

Apple’s arrogance pales in comparison to a Microsoft riding high.

Dell? They’ll have to shut it down and give the money back to its shareholders. Either that or they’ll change their name to Alienware.

Either way, the desktop arena is going to get a whole lot smaller. The size of smartphones, I would imagine.

It’s controversial introduction will be met with a lukewarm reception as all of the features have already been exposed in the months prior. We’ll know what it will look like, as every screw and facet will be measured and quantified by every industry pundit on the planet.

Microsoft’s partners will be powerless to stop Steve Ballmer from claiming complete ownership of desktop-level computing. Justice won’t prosecute because Microsoft will prove beyond any doubt, the rest of the computing industry has forsaken the desktop arena for smartphones and tablets.

Imagine for a moment, if Microsoft took all of it’s corporate knowledge of the culture of XBox and built a desktop computer that “looked” and “felt” like a Macintosh? It’s not like that hasn’t been done before, but things are different now.

The world is ready for a Microsoft desktop computer, that bears a specially designed hardware logo humming with Win 8 and that incorporates every peripheral they make, including XBox. Now that every Microsoft PC is outfitted with XBox, they can begin a campaign to marginalize the original Microsoft desktop computer.

The most salient point I believe is, Microsoft would, at long last, have complete control over the entire widget, just as it has been with XBox for the last decade. Look at the history of XBox! It’s rife with failure and missteps but that has only made the platform stronger.

Past behavior is indicative of Microsoft’s scorched earth policies with regard to failed products, but XBox is different. They didn’t scrap it, even after a billion-dollar loss in Red Ring of Death fiasco, they kept going at it. That’s different and different is a positive change at Microsoft.

Microsoft didn’t abandon XBox, they kept throwing money at it and eventually rooted out all of the bugs. My 2nd-gen XBox is still going strong, after five-years. It still plays the latest games and plays well on my home network.

Those are hallmarks of Apple Macintosh; durability and compatibility.

A Microsoft desktop is not for me, but a billion people who love Microsoft would probably buy one and family after family will settle in with Microsoft’s direction for the future.

Flood Lousy Old Copies on the market in hopes that one of the brown pieces sticks to the market and doesn’t stink.