I doubt you'll see software support drop for a long time. There is still plenty of support for xp more than a decade since it came out.
I think most big companies have R&D facilities, how else would they release new products? So you can't really say Microsoft are unique there. Apple certainly also have a nice big R&D facility, stuffed with engineers, developers and so forth. Pushing the industry? Meh. Microsoft are years late to the smartphone game, bringing nothing new to the table, and are only just taking tentative steps in to tablet OS, when iOS and Android are already stomping around. That's not groundbreaking, that's RIM levels of embarrassingly slow off the mark. The only innovation Microsoft have done recently is show how they're going to getting rid of the Start Menu (which we've had since 1995 I might add) in Windows 8...but then it appeared again. As for tweaked to perfection? Seriously? I think Apple take that a bit more seriously than Microsoft - the amount of inconsistencies within Windows' GUI is amazing, but if 'ol Steve Jobs sees a pixel out of place he flips his lid and gets it fixed. Okay, slight exaggeration, but you can't argue the fact that Apple's products have far more 'polish' than Microsoft - hell, it's what Apple market and sell themselves on. Don't get me wrong, Windows is a valuable OS, and 7 is way better than Vista. It's just not innovative, just derivative.
Clearly you don't know what you are talking about.. The day you will ACTUALLY USE all 3 devices, then we will talk. So far you far it clearly shows you have 0 knowledge of any phones, including yours. They never showed this. And The Start menu is Microosft innovation. Mac OS is the one without one. Linux/Unix xWindows is the task bar layout (dedicated task bar for application switching, nothing else on it). Slight exaggeration? Or complete lie... I vote of lie. Clearly you have not used Windows. All your post does is says is false information to try and create commotions. Troll?!
You talk about inconsistency and then praise OSX ? Oh my god... The prime example of inconsistenci is the green (Best fit button). For some applications it means maximize (like it should), for some it means take the necessary width for this height according to the document aspect ratio (Preview) and for some it means "minimize to some strange UI" (iTunes). Or click on a dmg archive in browser and watch nothing happening. Oh wait, something happened. The stupid OSX oppened the DMG file in Finder - in background. If you call this "far more 'polish'", then you have very, very strange view on the situation.
I give Microsoft credit for the first truly groundbreaking Mobile phone OS since Apple's iOS. Conceptually is light years ahead on iOS and Google Android. In terms of Tablets, I think Google Android Honeycomb has the edge. iOS works great on the small screen of a phone, but on a tablet you can just do that little bit more. The GUI of Windows Mobile 7 scales up to a tablet just great. But Windows 8 will have to have a lot of changes to be more suitable for tablets. The point remains that Windows OS does have confusing inconsistencies. You refute his comments, but you have to bring some counter-argument or evidence to the contrary. Shouting "troll" is not a valid argument.
I'm almost exclusively switched from PC to Mac. Last to make the leap was my i7 Win 7 beast which has been hackintoshed. I've still got Win 7 on there for games but for eveything else I'm OSX all the way (Or iOS on the mobile devices). While you get many people having both a Mac and a PC, you get a very small number of people ditching Mac for PC. But you get a lot of people ditching PC for Mac. Think about why that might be...
What? I own iOS devices, use Android regularly and have seen what MS are doing with Windows 7. You can't really be saying that Microsoft aren't playing catchup, with their phones only just hitting the market several years after everybody else and not even ready with a tablet OS. RIM are in dire straits, simply look at their share price recently. Hell, even Palm/HP are ahead of Microsoft right now. EDIT: Note, I'm not saying Windows Phone 7 is bad, it's not. It's a good mobile OS, and its something that deserves to be in the marketplace. It's just...late. That's not the sign of a company at the pinnacle of innovation, though it's good Microsoft aren't just doing a riff on what exists already. Yes they did. They showed the Metro interface with the swiping between 'pages' - and one of the pages had a Start Menu on it. So they push to a new interface, and then run back to what they've known for years and years as a safety net. Yes, the SM is Microsoft's innovation. Back in 1995. That was my point, they've done nothing with it since then, apart from change the colour. Right. I'm not using Windows 7 right now. My bad. Whereas all you do is jump up and down and type a load of nonsense. The green button should never mean maximise - that's what exists in Windows. As you said, it's best fit. iTunes tries to make it fit to your library, although I agree not 100% successfully, and other applications fit to content. It works if you know what it supposed to do - but yes, if you're used to maximise it's weird as. DMG unzipping? Of course it should end up in Finder, and why should Finder snap to the front? Again, it's just a different way of working - I know that this is how OS X works, so I don't flip out about it. It's not Windows, so it won't be the same. Yes, I get it, everybody on here hates Apple and everything they do. Get over it. I use Microsoft products on a daily basis, and Windows 7 is a good OS. Doesn't mean that everything they do is amazing either, and the same goes for Apple.
