Have you ever owned a Walkman? Who designed it? What was the name of Sony's Chairman in the year it was designed ? (ask your mom & Dad if they know). OK so people know Gates' name <shrugs shoulders> Big deal what does that prove.

Lets talk about CD's do you know the name of Phillips or Sony's chairman in the year they co-developed CD technology. <sarcasm> It's so obvious really, now that I think about it Microsoft brought the price of CD players Down </sarcasm>.

How many Far East semiconductor manufacturers can the average person on the street name. Does their ignorance mean that they do not benefit from the market forces that drive the price of their computer memory down?

Summary: My contentions

• Consumer electronics fall in price over time. This has very little to do with any one company (this may seem to be at variance with my contention about Noyce, but he set a trend).
• Whether or not people know a company chairmans name is irrelevant to that company's influence.
• Microsoft had next to nothing to do with the price of the hardware their software runs on.

Give Microsoft their due they have convinced people that a computer is a windows machine - excellent marketing but ... complete nonsense

We should probably stop this sometime soon, it's really off-topic :-)

Nuance

Baldrick, you wouldn't see a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord, singing "Subtle plans are here again!"