After the debacle of Vista, I could have sworn I read on this very site a few weeks ago that Win 7 was going to offered as a FREE upgrade, at least to Vista users. Am I on crack or did I actually see that story?

Honestly. The adoption rate of Exchange 2007 was LOW and slow. Even when SP1 was released (after almost a year delay, btw), we're still stuck with this shitty command line interface that USED to be GUI to do all sorts of fun admin things in. It's a royal PITA to administer. How about an SP2 that will fix seemingly dead issues like OWA support for other browsers, etc? If MS thinks we and other companies that just spent thousands of dollars on the "bleeding edge" 2007 are going to pony up for 2010, they've got a surprise waiting. This is incrtedibly insulting.

I guess Ballmer realized how shitty everything was the company has done over the past 2-3 years since he took over and decided to move on.

Sorry. You are dead wrong. This is a classic move by union telco members when there is a contract dispute. It's way too coincidental this was done (in two places) just when their most recent contracts expired. CLASSIC telco sabotage.

When I hear that critical lines were cut, I thought to myself "I bet there just happens to be some sort of labor dispute going on with the union guys in California." Sure enough, you guys confirmed it.

My father worked for Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic, etc) for roughly 15 years until he recently retired. He was "management." EVERY SINGLE TIME the union guys went out on strike, the vandalism began. There's a lot of political back-scratching going on when this happens and the union is VERY good at protecting these guys from any sort of prosecution. Fortunately, one time, one or two guys were electrocuted in Brooklyn (or maybe it was Staten Island) the last time around. They were climbing a pole attempting to cut lines. They successfully sabotaged lines in Fairfield County back in 98 or 99. They set fires in buildings, flooded tunnels containing copper and fiber lines, attack managers physically or damage their cars while they are working and these guys are "picketing." Disgusting behavior.

Union workers are a pathetic bunch. Very petty, very childish, very ignorant and are often despicable. You cut phone lines that people rely on for 911 services because you want a f***ing pay raise??? I hope one day a family member of a union telco worker dies due to an intentionally cut line. Maybe they will learn. but I doubt it.

I'm kinda-sorta looking for a new job because my boss is an a$$hole. So, I update my res and look at the listings on Monster...and it's DEAD. I'm talking about a couple of listings per week if that for anything more than entry-level (I've got 10+ years under my belt, so..). Its pretty dismaying, to be honest. The layoffs don't seem to have hit this area hard (yet) but there are no open jobs around that I can find.

Yeah, good luck with that. That would require the Chinese gov't to actually give a shit about this problem.

This guy is right. Piracy is embedded in the Chinese culture. I dated a Chinese girl and her entire extended family (a lot of people) felt it was perfectly normal to do shit like pirate software - and eat endangered species (I'm not kidding). I'd be surprised if there was even one legitimate copy of software in that entire country, frankly.