Fact is that every example you've stated cost about the same as M$FT products, but provided *superior* functionality. Take, for instance, DRDOS, which clearly gave more memory, was more stable, was completely open to developers, and was faster than DOS. OS/2, MacOS, and Linux are all superior to any Winblows platform. As to more expensive hardware in MacOS, the time to obsolescence of Macs is longer, evening it out. I used to do support, and, much as I hate to admit it, I made more money off of M$FT products than *anything* else. Imagine an hour and a half to configure a netcard? Two hours to track down a silly NT printing problem? I got paid by the hour, man.