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I find this rather interesting. I find Mr. Sanders to be quite the character...

Where there is smoke there is fire, and I smell smoke!!!

WOW. Great post Super,(snif) wait....I smell it too......

All I have to say is that Sanders quote on fragmenting Microsoft would set the computer industry back by 20 years is a complete joke. All their trying to do is to stop Microsoft from putting IE, Messenger, etc. in their OS. Hasn't he ever heard of AIM, ICQ, Netscape, Opera, Mozilla, etc, etc. to use as alternates to Microsoft's products???

And hasn't he ever heard of a little OS called Linux...???

I think Microsoft and Mr. AMD are forming a nice little friendship.

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wonder how he proves that

Dunno, I don't think they are that far off really. Most people who buy PCs are idiots (In a nice way, heh). They do not know of alternatives anyway.
It's kinda a lose lose situation whatever Microsoft does. Look at the whole Java debacle. They (rightly) get sued over bundling their own semi-incompatible distribution. They remove it in XP & they get sued for being anti-competitive. There's no pleasing Sun.

Most idiots have problems with basic operation of Windows (I know at work someone who didn't even know how to remove the desktop wallpaper after adding it, heh). Linux is far from an alternative for most people. I know about 2 years or less ago I couldn't even get linux to install, despite the help files was just too alien.

I hear ya. Linux has come along way in the past few years as far as user friendliness, but their still not up to Microsoft's level, or Apple's for that matter. I think if users opened their eyes to the possibilities that Linux contains they would see that taking a few days or weeks to learn it would be worth their while.

I work in a computer lab at my university and I've heard some of the most stupid questions you would ever think would be asked. And I quote, "How do I get on the Internet?!?" "How do I save my work?" "Why does my paper look like this?" How the hell am I supposed to know how you screwed your paper up? I'm not the answer to everything!!!

Anyway, there are plenty more great ones, but I'll decline to post them here anyway. Maybe I should make a thread on the most stupid computer questions ever...

oh, it gets much better
AMD CEO: I asked Gates for favor
earlier written testimony ,maybe untrue

Yeah I get stuff like this in email also. a few system specs & then "what would you recommend I change settings wise for...".
Though most funnily my cousin who was to be starting "Computer Applications" in college 2 weeks or so after I went down to his house. I was asked down to fix his printer. He had installed the thing (wrongly) about 20 times (According to the Printer folder in the Control Panel). Took like 2 minutes to do it again from disk & it worked.
Then he said something about his modem, which to him was the "case under the monitor". Which he completely believed despite me telling otherwise. Hmmmm.
Nor did he actually realise how to shut down a PC via the Start menu. Rather killing the power & wondering "Why does this (scandisk) always run after turning it on".

Needless to say he failed the college course (About 6 final exams at that I think, heh)

The world is full of people like that. I have already told the story of the person at my work who waited for 4 hours wanting to use his machine because he needed me to power it back up again after an electrician had turned it off.....

Personally I am thankful for these people because their stupidity keeps me in a job, and I fear for the day where someone invents a computer that fixes itself and is one hundred percent intuitive and understandable.

As to this "back by 20 years stuff", I think that even if Microsoft went up in flames tomorrow the industry would not go back 20 years. Once something has been invented, it can't be "uninvented". There will still be the internet, tcp/ip, hard drives, hardware accelerated transform and lighting, broadband cable modem internet services, Oracle, SQL, etc, etc, etc....

I think that anyone who thinks of Microsoft as the be all and end all of computing is sadly flawed. They are just one manifestation of computing and all people would do well to fully realise that. They did not invent binary. They did not invent the internet. They did not invent the hard drive. I think mostly that even the complete destruction of Microsoft would merely mean some key retraining for IT workers here and there, and refresher courses for admin workers like secretaries, etc. The computing industry will never die and doesn't have Microsoft as its core axiom.

Microsoft's armageddon would undoubtedly mean a lot of inconvience and compatibility issues with whatever sprang up to take its place, but to think for one minute that we would all go back our 1K, single floppy, no hard drive boxes like the "good old days" of two decades ago is complete and utter poppy****.

Empires rise and fall.... Did the world stop turning when Athens fell to the power of Rome? Of course not. Nature abhorrs a vacuum and another monolithic corporate structure would merely take Microsoft's place and start to attempt to take everything over once again. That's not going to change just because Bill isn't at the helm of the Microsoft Corporate Machine any more....

source: http://www.theregus.com/content/3/24681.html