What I find interesting is the ground MS is losing outside of the US - particularly in the third world economies where software piracy is rampant.

Here you have a situation where companies cannot afford MS licenses let alone upgrade paths. While this is no excuse for piracy, these companies (and governments) are looking to Linux as a low cost alternative in addition to the Open Source philosophy as providing a basis for building their own technological economies. Indeed, this is powerful stuff due to the fact that intellectual property concerns are the least of their worries.

As an aside, last week Jeb Long told me that one of the reasons dBase become so wide spread was because, early on, he convinced Ashton Tate management to not copy protect it. Many people think that MS is shooting themselves in the foot with their current jihad on software piracy.

As for Borland, I piled up on it a few weeks ago when it was trading at $6.75 < BBG >


>Spot on.
>
>Borland's success increasingly depends on Linux and its assembled supporters- direct competition with Microsoft is no longer in the plan. If the technology matches the business savvy, Borland is back, bigtime.
>
>Regards
>
>JR