" If you're only doing word processing and browsing, Windows systems are not high maintenance. It's only when you start trying to do interesting stuff on it that the maintenance cost rockets"
Thats true... in theory.
As the theory goes:
1. buy your fancy new PC
2. install all the extra HW (video card etc) you will need for the next (lets say) 4 years
3. install the final bug free OS
4. install the final bug free drivers for your HW
5. install the final bug free applications
6. happy computing for the next four years..
.
7. start over again from 1.
Neat.
But is that likely to happen in real world?
No, that is a myth in the real word of today.
No matter how simplistic needs one has regarding apps, sooner or later you'll need and boldly go to bother teh godly system with driver/OS/app. patches, if not anything else.
The grim fact is everytime something not completely isolated from the (Win) OS is altered, you face the risk of total destruction (i.e. OS usability dropping below acceptable level, not fixable, OS reinstall ahead).
"Pegasos/MorphOS will not qualify for the "it just works" accolade until the quality and range of software available for it matches or exceeds that expected as minimal on higher availability platforms like Windows, Linux and MacOS X. There's not much attraction for people who just want to word process and browse the Internet if you don't have a top quality office suite or browser."
I agree here, mostly. The thing is, Peg/MOS still got hope to get it right! Win systems, on the other hand, are stuck with fundamentally flawed design -- a problem even not the giga$ seem to be able to fix..
I'm not saying MOS or OSx will make it, no.
What I say is this: XP/Win2k isn't good enough. Not even close.
As long that situation remains there is room for other players..
PS. please bear with me, just had to reinstall Windows after a problem that occurred while installing a device driver (complete registry destruction) :-)