I read just about everything that is post on the three different forums here, but do not always post a comment. I find it interesting to see what people think, and how they feel about the way things are going in the computing world. It appears that must of the posters are only looking at just the average to above average individual using computers. They don't seem to be looking at the world wide use of computers as a whole.

When talking about who is going to gain or hold onto the number one position in the OS wars then we really need to focus on more then the causal users. There are corporations out there that are not going to spend millions or even billions of dollars to change over to a new system that is yet to prove itself. World wide companies like FedEx, UPS, Walmart militaries (world wide), governments, this list could go on and on. Now do you really think that Google has a chance against Microsoft at this point. Apple, Red Hat, Fedora, Suse, BSD, etc. have yet to even dent Microsoft's hold on the world. And, when you think about the world don't just think of one country, but all countries on planet Earth.

Microsoft has a hold, and to break that hold the next great OS had better be able to prove without any doubt it is the best thing since the wheel.

To say the true I don't really think that Google chas even a small chance to start "a war" with MS in the OS field. They might have a chance on netbook market but thats also not so clear. As you already mentioned there are other companies and operating systems which don't even dent to Windows. But Apple is a serious opponent to MS on US market. But well see how it's gona be in the future when Google releases some kind of betas.

Regards

Ubuntu is one of the best linux operating systems. it's still behind MS. Mac moved to a UNIX engine. Novell finally embraced linux. Novell is dead, Mac has a smaller but faithful following, and linux is more for geeks like me. I don't see any real threats right now for MS.