I thought of that too, but threw it out when I thought "hey...now THAT would undermine Windows position in the PC platform market. Therefore, I would expect the focus to be on using Linux for servers rather than as desktops. It would make sense from that angle since Linux sucks as a desktop environment today, but is very strong as a server platform

Which is exactly my experience with their Linux distribution, and hence why I doubt MS would use Corel to port .NET.....its not impossible, but not awful likely

I would think that getting help from Corel porting Visual C++ to Linux would be a priority ahead of .NET...... If you really look at .NET, you'll notice that a lot of it focuses on the server rather than the client. That would mean that porting things like SQL Server, ASP, and ADO to Linux would be required before actually doing much else. I just don't see that happening without porting a lot of COMesque code. And what about IIS?? I just don't know if many Linux Admins are going to give up Apache in favor of IIS and I don't see MS walking away from IIS.

2%???? 2 whole precent??? Ok....that was mean, but I strongly doubt that number. Apple computers make up 5% of the PC market sales in the US as per an NPR report a month ago. Given that, and the fact the major revenue source of Mac software sales would be Office, that would suggest that the vast majority of Mac users have purchased Office....which contradicts what I've seen among Mac users. Either way, if the reason MS invested in Apple was to earn money, why do people waste time and effort trying to read evil intent into every move that Microsoft makes?? Over the years I've seen them work with any number of companies in partnership which often benefitted both parties....after all, I doubt that Corel said "Please don't give us your money!". Maybe the more interesting question is why did Corel accept the MS investment?

Corel is a major Linux vendor?? Wow. When I used their version of Linux I thought it was pretty bad. As for getting Corel to support .Net.....well I suspect that Microsoft will be focusing on getting it running on their platform first since at this point its really nothing more than a vision and a set of promises to provide tools and support for that vision. One thing to remember: Microsoft owns a chunk of Apple. They bought it not too long before Apple revived. Maybe Microsoft is just being a smart investor. They sure haven't gotten any major benefit from writing Windows for Mac software

Paul, I've got Mandrake 6.2 on one of my boxes too....and it crashes a lot.....maybe it wasn't installed properly?? Well maybe, but after installing Windows on lots of boxes, I can tell you that the installation of Linux was tougher....and if I missed something and thats why Linux crashes, well thats part of being an OS. I've taken it upon myself to try to learn Linux, but after two months of working with it, I always feel it lacks a lot of the polish that Windows has. You wanted specifics??? Here goes: How about no file find built into the file manager?? How about trying to run software which depends on a package which isn't installed, but getting no error message to tell you that the package wasn't found? How about being unable to sort files based on their attributes (in KDE...I seem to think this is available in GNOME)? How about the boot time?????? Maybe you want the box to run all year long, but I don't -- I can hear the computer running in the next room when I want to sleep so I turn it off. What about developing desktop applications?? Have you looked at the API for GNOME?? Object Oriented C???? Why?? There are SO MANY hard casts going on in there. Maybe its "efficient", but I look at it as risky. Look, Linux isn't really a GUI oriented OS. Sure its a great box for people wanting to port from some UNIX OS and/or to use as a web server, but I sure as hell won't be creating any commercial desktop software for it any time soon. Paul

After having spent the last couple weeks working with Linux, I can now say with some authority that people will NOT be switching from Windows to Linux anytime soon. It is NOT as stable as people claim! The user interface is REALLY bad (both KDE and GNOME.....they just don't feel anywhere near as good as Windows or Mac OS). The only decent IDE I have found is something called KDevelop (see www.KDevelop.org) which is GREAT for a free software package (better than what Code Warrior has to offer!), but isn't as good as Dev Studio....given time it might make it there, but its not there today. With all this, the only thing I can see that you get with Linux is stability (maybe its better than Windows 2000, but from what I hear Win 2000 is very very very stable) and security.....great for a web server, but not something I think the average person needs...

I've been playing with Linux for the last couple weeks, and it is NOT the solution! I've installed a Corel and Mandrake distributation, and BOTH have crashed about 1/3 of the time I've used it!!! So much for the Linux stability!! .....maybe it wasn't a good install you say?? Well if it can't be installed easily, how good can it be?!? Aside from the crashes, it boots very slowly (hey....I try to save power by shutting down my computer!) and even the much touted GNOME UI looks pretty poor. Maybe for a bunch of Unix weenie Linux is a step forward, but for me, its been a step backwards....

Hey Tom, I've put a class library together for ADO which allows you to do some pretty rich reporting. If you're interested in looking at it, the site is www.ADOPro.com. Pau