If you run Windows on a Mac, it's another copy for Microsoft. Better yet, it's on a competitor's hardware. It would be like Microsoft taking it to Apple's home field.

It looks like Microsoft missed the major upgrade cycle from 2004 to early this year. Windows Vista would have been a much better story in 2005 than in 2006, or, realistically, 2007.

Over 35 percent of our customers run Microsoft Windows Server.

There's no way you can cram enough hardware into a $500 price point and make it run well for Windows XP, let alone Vista.

Mac OS X isn't a free platform, and it runs on expensive hardware. It is not a plausible Windows alternative for our desktop customers, who are mainly large government organizations displacing Windows desktops and big enterprise corporations replacing Solaris workstations.

Microsoft would certainly benefit if say a Comcast or some other broadband providers with popular portals chose MSN as the default search.