On Saturday 12 February 2005 09:19 pm, Sam MacDonald wrote: > IBM has over 300,000 employees world wide. I don't know what M$ numbers > are but it's big. Yes IBM has helped the open source community but, IBM > helped because it sees profit. Just like it sees profit in M$. > > If you look at what almost happened when a big auto maker almost failed > I think you will see what would happen if M$ starts to falter. > Sam your missing my point. When the hardware business started to falter so did IBM until Gerstner turned them into a services company. Apple may be a better example of a "back from the brink" story. The original article even mentioned it. What is Apple's primary business today? Digital music. It's iPods and iTunes. Macs, mini and otherwise are not were Apple is making its big money. I don't think a comparison to Chrysler is warranted in this case. It will take a long, very long, slide for MS to be in the position Chrysler was in 25 years ago. The shareholders would cause a leadership change long before that happens. -- Jack Ungerleider jack at jacku.com