but it is a failure for a lot of people who laid down cold hard cash for it

They managed to get people to pay a fortune for a product that by Balmers own admission is a work in progress. You have to either give them credit for pulling it off or lambast people for being so naive.

I would have said it is only the software industry that gets away with this stuff but with whats going on in the world i'm beginning to think we are all being taken for a ride by the owners and people of power.

- Rising oil price which by the looks of it is going to be justified by saying we need to invest in alternatives.

- Credit crunch because of cowboy lending practices

- Draconian Copyright enforce due to dated and flawed buisness models

- Rising Taxes to pay for inefficent and short sight government decision making.

All these have something in common, its the common people that are being hit to pay for these mistakes while the super rich corpRats and there major shareholders just seem to get richer.

Call me commie if you want but thats what i'm seeing. Dead vulture because it all smells bad to me :)