!=

[FIRE = Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate]

MOFT:

At Microsoft, we see a future full of potential. We're working to expand the possibilities for computing every day, by continually improving and advancing our current products and embarking on fundamental research that paves the way for tomorrow's breakthroughs.

Fleishman:

Microsoft has revealed that Windows 7 will offer an optional, downloadable Windows XP virtual machine to provide full backwards compatibility.

Eight years behind Apple and three years after Apple dropped support for Classic.

Winsupersite:

Before, Microsoft could claim that Windows 7 would be at least as compatible as Windows Vista. Now, they can claim almost complete Windows XP compatibility, or almost 100 percent compatibility with all currently running Windows applications. [emphasis in orig]

The point isn't MICROSOFT SUXXX0RS!!! AAPL ROOLZ!!!, though if you had to boil it down to four words those ones are much closer to true than to false. Rather, the problem is that Microsoft is the Detroit of software. It makes big, ugly, dangerous, resource-hogging crap, and its “success” is based on...its “success.” Vast sectors of our economy, from enormous enterprises to mom-and-pop shops, desperately depend on its continued dominance; and when it collapses, they—and we—will be screwed. It was hardly obvious that falling real-estate values would materially contribute to the sudden collapse of Detroit; and it’s far from obvious what will topple Microsoft.

Window Steam blog:

We will be soon releasing the beta of Windows XP Mode and Windows Virtual PC for Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate.

“Ultimate” is right up there with naming an OS after the year of its release.

Upcoming UI innovations to look forward to:

Some bloke named Steve:

This is impenetrable. It’s UI salad.

Gruber:

Keep rocking that floppy disk icon, Microsoft.

See also: “As Estonia goes, so goes the world,” “Blowback for dummies,” “MS’s homeland security strategy,” “Judge to Ballmer: ‘GIVE IT UP FOR ME’,” “Missing from the stimulus bill.”