And when those companies die, others with a willingness to lower profit margins and create new 
products and services will arise.  The small flexible company may have a greater chance in this 
market since they can be more flexible.  It does help to have a lot of financial backing while 
making these changes however.  From working in retail for a time and from other sources, I know 
that some items sell for 400% mark-up, some for much more.   Other items that a store advertises 
may only have a 10% mark-up just to cover use of shelf space.  Lately some stores have had items 
with a 0% mark-up or that sell for $10 with a $10 dollar rebate.  These items are "loss leaders" 
that are used to get you in the store, since you may buy more while you are there.

Cool thing about Linux is you are not locked-in to the software forever once you use it.  You can 
switch at any time and there are free tools to help you migrate.  MS likes to lure you in and then 
make it so difficult to transition to something else that you probably won't unless sufficiently 
motivated.

Brian Kelsay

>>> Gerald Combs <gerald@zing.org> 06/30/04 12:55PM >>>

You're focusing on the viewpoint of the software producer.  If Swingline
charges $750 a seat for a "stapler license", that's great for Swingline
(and their investors) but it adds overhead for everyone else.  If
someone comes out with $5 staplers then companies can put that extra
$745/seat to better use.

Many traditional software makers enjoy high margins.  From the market's
perspective this is an inefficiency that should be eliminated.  Open
source is one way to do that.  It may suck for those few software
companies in the long run, but it's great for the rest of the economy.