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Summary
The bottom line is that Microsoft's copy protection, its expensive software licenses, and related maintenance costs for software licensing compliance are making Microsoft much less competitive. The move to annual licensing or "software assurance" fees further decreases Microsoft's competitiveness. Microsoft should provide fixes to its software for free, as it does now, because these fixes just repair problems with the software that Microsoft shipped, or they block hacking vulnerabilities that Microsoft overlooked in the final product. Microsoft's argument that Windows is more secure than Linux is silly. Because Microsoft software is installed on more PCs throughout the planet, it is the most-attacked and most-compromised software. Only when Linux becomes as widely distributed as Windows would it become as attacked and compromised as Windows. Significantly cheaper alternatives to Microsoft software loom on the horizon. These alternatives are becoming increasingly attractive as Microsoft approaches requiring annual licensing fees for its software. Like past PC software giant Novell, Microsoft's greed signifies the beginning of its demise as the pre-eminent computer software monopoly. Because of these reasons, it is time for me to fire up my new Linux PC.