> You're a better man than I am. People don't _want_ to learn a new OS and > apps unless they are geeks like we are. this is where my assembler class finally paid off... I discovered the undocumented 'ecu' opcode on Intel processors. so a few bytes of to the correct UDP port, will execute the 'electrocute user' instruction, ridding myself of any pesky end-users who get out of hand and start demanding things like being able to do work with their computers. (I think there was a humor post going around during the early 80s, where someone talked about an 'electrocute programmer' opcode for a mainframe) > There will be one question in thier > mind "Why can't I just use M$ Word?" because 99% of the corporate planet > knows how to use that. true. still, there are a few rays of hope, in the form of the end users who've had MS products do too many wierd things to them, and are ready to ditch them. (generally provided that they don't need to think about it too hard, or if they have their hand held for several days; which is why Real-Time is offering that week of free onsite consulting time for the first company that is willing to give it a try). > I say et M$ have the desktop. And let's concentrate our energies on the > server end. actually, I think we're doing awfully well on the server side; not so well that we can rest on our laurels; but well enough that we should start to leverage that power onto the desktop. linux desktops work better with linux servers than MS desktops do. I think we're starting to see room for that to be exploited. > Specifically in middleware, what does 'middleware' mean to you? AFAIK, it's just another buzz-word that means whatever the salesdroid wants it to mean. > and cross-platform file serving. that's a losing battle, because you're always playing catchup, always fighting on someone else's terms. look what happened to OS/2. Linux on the desktop can help bypass that. > There's good money in this area without all the HUGE overhead of supporting > massive amounts of individual machines and non-technical users who can't > understand why they need to "mount" a floppy or cdrom and don't want to > understand it either. if you're a consultant, yes. if you're an admin in the trenches who'd rather get improvements done, rather than fight MS-user brushfires; i think most would rather have *nix on the desktop. Carl Soderstrom -- Insert witty comment here.