Computer technology is my profession. My computer career began in about 1964.

Here are 2 comments--one on the virtualization issue and the other on customer patience.

Within the last 5 years advances in performance of architectures, such as x86, have produced a current crop of machines with enormous compute power. This being true, organizations that run collections of servers have begun to use multiple virtualized copies of an OS on a single server. For example, the organization I am working with runs 6 virtual servers on a single XEON-based hardware box. In the Linux world, examples of virtualization software are XEN and OpenVZ. Even the server hosting companies are using this technology to keep the new hardware sysems busier. OpenVZ can support up to 100 copies of the OS running on a machine at the same time. What will happen with VISTA?

Let's move the area of customer patience and talk about autos/cars. Up to about 1970 I owned several Fords and GM products and liked them a lot. In the years that followed, I had a very unsatisfactory experience with an Oldsmobile F86. My friends and relatives also began having major issues with GM-built cars. For example, my brother-in-law's Olds dealer could not keep his wife's new Cierra in tune, so that it constantly stalled in traffic. The result was the relationship with local and regional dealerships reached a very low level because of perceived arrogance on the part of the auto makers.

For myself, I solved the problem by buying my first Toyota (Corona). Since then my wife and I have owned only Japanese-made vehicles--Toyotas, Hondas, Subarus, Isuzus, Datsun/Nissans, etc., and I have never been disapointed. The quality is high and the vehicles are reliable.

Apparently, my experience was shared by many others, because the Camry and Accord both overtook Chevrolet in yearly sales in the US market. This trend has resulted in major problems for domestic auto makers. Their current economic woes are of their own making. It would be advisable for Microsoft to observe carefully what happened there, but I do not expect this to happen. Meanwhile, there are newcomers on the scene (such as Google)who may end up "eating Microsoft's lunch". As far as I am concerned, the sooner the better!



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