Under American law technically a corporation is a person. Just 2 cents for knowledge sake.
An aside about law that has bothered me for years. For all of you claiming MS owns each copy of Windows, under American law a company is responsible for the actions of company personnel when they are using company property. Companies are responsible under the law to deliver safe products too. Just to take the ownership issue a little bit further, however, if MS owns every copy of Windows, then the company could legally be found negligent for allowing risky behavior by distributing the product to potentially dangerous individuals or in a wanton fashion. IMO, MS should back off its claim to ownership of each copy of Windows. Digital rights to the programming and its capabilities and maybe even the style of progamming could be patented, but each copy of Windows? I think it's been a mistake for the company to buy into this thinking that they own each copy of Windows. Never had this argument about record albums years ago. Honestly, I agree with them about reproduction of their content. They should be in control of how their work is distributed, as MS should about the singularity of each digital license.
After 23 years of MS and working hand over foot the entire time to make the most of the experience 8 sometimes 10 hours a day (not IT but), I can say that MS is extraordinarily insensitive to the expectations of IT personnel and network managers. That's easy to see, contingencies or not. Ahead of the game support is NOT IN EXISTENCE. It's a mess for sure, and let's not forget (getting back to something basic), someone who purchases a Windows computer is free to be dissatisfied with the product. That's their right. Unfortunately, there aren't viable options for IT personnel. There isn't suitable organization and support in the Linux movement, and, good or bad, can't get everything from MS Office outside of a VM with Linux. VMs are inefficient in my experience, anyway->shouldn't even be on a network for anything but performing diagnositcs/repairs imo. All said, when users, owners/employees, etc. are pointing at a product and saying that it is not designed to a suitable standard, well, something has to give.
Defending MS can't be easy. It's not about home users. MS is the broken cog for home and IT alike unfortunately. All comes back to the product. It's under-engineered. I promise I won't budge of this one, but I won't debate it in a forum either. Too big and deep a topic.
@Lockdown, you ever feel like you could do a better job than the CEO at MS, since that was brought up? I am sure you actually probably do. Funny, until you realize that even I feel that way, without the IT experience. Just knowing to turn to IT would begin a healing process for the company. And so would begin the agony of shame for what has become of MS too. Not that the company was ever in a good position, honestly.
So now MS has placed itself in the position of borking the home user by forcing things on them. Yet, they have still managed to stay on the wrong side of IT at the same time. This after their excuses for ignoring IT concerns, claiming the home users have to be considered. Who will be left to do wrong when MS is finished? And all of those years of development without serious IT consultation will go down the tubes (where they should go) should MS decide to turn things around...because the OS is built on flawed principles and on a flawed base and with flawed ambitions.
Anyway, here in the U.S., we should at least partly blame ourselves for not alerting the government to the inevitablilities of MS' rambling and bumbling efforts. The entire concept of personal ownership of a PC should have been put under an electron microscope by the U.S. govt. Then they would been able to quantify what most of us feared was coming, and, guess what? They could have a plan. Yet, the current Windows kernel and foundation burns everything in its path while it "rages like a roaring lion" and "comes to steal to kill and to destroy"...AND there aren't any viable options for a professional working person other than Windows.
BTW, the Europeans have done more to help curb disaster at Rednobyl by far than the U.S. government. Congress needs an education on ethical programming I would say...and on EULA "law" LOLOLOLOL->MS EULA->the greatest practical joke of all time. One other thing. Let's hope for a real option. Not just Google Chrome OS. I mean something that conforms to standards and norms required by the business world. It's not yet in the MS EULA that hope for better is punishable by MS with oh maybe a frame-up/file plant job...who knows what. Such loveliness we have from MS...
I promise I am for you guys. If I seem over-opinionated about this, I don't mean to offend anyone. However, anyone who knows business knows something has to be done about MS. Noone wants to tell them how to succeed (or how to NOT fail...maybe that's the better way to explain things)...that's why they get paid who work at MS. However, I really believe something will happen sooner than later...don't know when sorry, but probably government issues around the world I suspect (even here in the U.S. likely)...