unfaire

Will Microsoft Get Squeezed by Chrome OS?

If my memory is correct, in the mid 80's, while IBM was offering $200 OS2 for PC, Microsoft came out with Windws 3 for only $27 or so including Words, Excel, and PowerPoint. I got both of them but I immediately abandoned OS2 for Windows for the latter's easy of use as well as integration of various aspects of PC operation. At the time, OMB OS2 was the defacto standard for big corporations and corporate IT people were looking down at Windows as cheap toys.
Now 20 years later, Microsft is behaving like IBM then, and worse. I do appreciate the new Windows 7 and the all the wonderful features of Windows. But Microsoft is now behaving like (and as) monopoly with little regards for users. For example, we have files which go all the way back to Windows 3 and Microsoft has abandoned the backward compatibility for their own products. It is like you bought a car and after a while you cannot get its parts anymore. But, cars get junked but our files do not.
Windows also got very intransparent about interface with non-Windows software and hardware and that interface keeps some vendors like Adobe tied so tightly with Windows. Of course, with each upgrade of Windows, we have to do the expensive Photoshop upgrade and that keep both of them very happy.
But, we start to see the terrible effects of this intrasparent interface. Just ask someone with Windows Vista or Windows 7, they suffered so much Blue Screen Of Death as well as Screen Freeze. And, they are VERY slow in fixing them and the vendors like HP are hanging their customer high and dry.
I believe many people are hoping Google Chrome OS or anyone else will come to relief them from the high cost and unnecessarily complicated Windows monopoly.
Someday, someone will succeed in dethroning Microsoft, as Microsoft did to IBM, big corporate users notwithstanding, if Microsoft keeps going the way they do today.

Next Up: Dow 10,000? Does Anyone Care?

There are many market indexes, each representing a different aspect of the market. Whether a market index is "better" or "more important" for you, it depends on your purpose and how you are making sense out of it. If you are looking for a fast rising index after the 2008 crash or a wider coverage of certain type of stocks, S&P is of course the one, not DJIA. However, as the saying goes, what goes up must come down, there may be a down side to S&P. As another saying goes, it is not the size but how you use it.