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I'm not a fan of M$, & especially their tactics as of late, but I don't think that anyone is grasping the reality of the finances involved here. I seriously doubt that Bill has 52,(or whatever) billion dollars just sitting in a bank someplace. Just because he is "worth" that much doesn't mean that he readily has that amount available on hand. The dynamics of business, (especially ones the size of M$) probably dictate that a great deal of that amount (52Bil), is tied up in the company, investments, and various interests. It takes a LOT of money to keep a business the size of M$ running, (and to buy congress and a few judges ) The fact of the matter is, it's pretty much Bill's business how much he wants to donate to charity, regardless of what we think he can afford. But if he is anything like many businessmen of abundant wealth, he probably has so much of his money tied up in the business that if it were to suddenly fail, via an ElGrande catastrophic event, and hit bottom, he would lose his arse like some already have. (Unless, of course, he follows ENRON's exampl ) As for whether or not I trust M$ to handle the future of technology... I would say not entirely! I think that if they continue to bull competitors, customers, and such as they have been doing, AND get their way... they could very well stagnate the growth of technology, in that (healthy) competition breeds innovation, and innovating often means breaking standards. If we allow M$ to dictate the standards by which the world adheres to, we will only aspire to and be limited to Microsoft's vision of what technology should be. I'm not ready to live in M$'s Candyland version of what technology should be. I run as many as 3 different brands of operating systems on my machines, and I'm very thankful that I still have a choice!!!
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