m.jacob wrote: > Well, MS is MS ... right? Btw, we tried to offer a Linux > only machine as a test with the option for the customer to > upgrade to Windows later, of course paying the full > license for the upgrade and guess what ... 100% upgraded. C'mon, let's face it: one reason why ppl use Windows is because it's familiar to ... others, which means if THEY get stuck, someone can help them. That's not the case with Linux, even less with BeOS (on which, I admit, one gets stuck a lot less often than on Windows or Linux). This is why any new "BeOS" release needs a BeOS-specific Instant Messaging system built-in, so that help for developers and users is just a few mouse-clicks away. Anything you can't accomplish without oodles of $$ you have to accomplish by working smarter. One of the problems "BeOS" has is that its developers rather fart around on their own basement projects (which never ever go anywhere anyway) rather than teaming up and creating a really useful, user-friendly, marketable and properly supported application. If "BeOS" is lagging behind, then it's the app developers that are to blame - no one else. Why? Because you can only market what you have, and on "BeOS" you don't really have anything commercially viable. And you all know that an OS can't be marketed, but its applications can. Anyway... forget about names and OEMs, join together and get some proper apps out, not the 23rd image viewer without proper translators or the 15th text editor without what one expects it to support. Just my 0.02, Helmar P.S. Also don't forget that little companies/projects make it big because the followers believe in the "leaders" and "visionaries". There ain't no one like that on BeOS, and JLG had more "board" than "user" or "developer" appeal.