Eric in Boston, you should hang around here more often; then you'd be able to recognize my trademark signature in pretty much everything I post...I have switched more than 10 people to Macs, and they ALL say they will never look back again to the inferior world of the Windows PC.
As for the rest of my diatribes, they just represent the usual statements that are more than deserved when it comes to a platform that adds neither pleasure nor taste to our daily computing experiences. And I'll always be more than ready to counter any unfounded opinions on why on Earth PCs could be better than Macs...unless you like playing millions of different FPS games, of course.
Again, MS IS DEAD. Just wait for its burial in due course.
I'm not sure I'm following you yet I believe you and I may agree on some points.
1)Let's be clear on the PC industry vs. Microsoft. There is a huge difference and would take thousands of man hours to write such a novel.

If you have a beef with either, please elaborate.
2)I don't think MS is dead. Since the early 90s they have really grown from an OS-only company to offering products/services in applications, databases, backend systems, and high availability. Granted Sun/Linux/Unix is sometimes preferred by companies, the fact remains that MS is used by millions of companies throughout the world for IT infrastructure as well as end user operating systems and end user applications. If you wish to clarify your "MS is dead" statement, go for it.
3)I think MS has been running out of ideas on OS improvements for years now. Not because MS is out of ideas, but we all remember the Monopoly cases that MS has faced, mainly the IE browser integration. So here sits MS in 2002-ish timeframe when they were beaten by numerous government lawsuits about how much it can integrate IE (and maybe other stuff) into the OS. This comes back to my definition of an OS. Now let's look at Apple who has all-governing power of it's Mac family (and I'm not complaining about it) yet Apple has not been sued about their iLife free giveaway, or Safari, or whatever other applications they give away or bundle tightly. Maybe someday Apple will be sued. Who knows.
I think MS has had a tough time trying to figure out what to do...on one hand they can't integrate too much into the OS or they will get sued and again lose billions. On the other hand if they go back to the OS days of DOS or WFWG 3.11 where only core services were included, they lose sales of their other products. So it's a catch-22 for MS. Let me look at Vista for a moment...throw out all your notions about it's over-secure-mom mentality...I look at Vista...LOOK....and I see just a few enhancements of the menus and pretty screens. Big deal. That's why I did not upgrade. Months after the release did it become known that Vista had hardware compatibility probs and stuff...so I'm glad that I stood by my XP...if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
As I mentioned somewhere earlier, I think all the OSes that have been released over the past 10 years or so offer the same 90% stuff. There's only so much in the Operating System market segment that can have room for improvement. Unless the next Apple OS has built in telepathy, I don't know what the next big thing is for an OS.
So please let us know what you mean by "MS is dead"
Now your other comment about switching users....and? So what? I've switched people from 1 product to another all the time. Let me give you my reason why I haven't switch a Mac user to a PC user...you ready? here we go: I know about 2 Mac users out of literally hundreds of computer users (and I'm sure we all know hundreds of computer users because everyone these days uses a computer). Yup. And they love their Macs just like I love my PCs. Just because you switched 10 people doesn't mean they were special people. How do we know they weren't 10 grandmas that in 2008 were using Windows95 and you switched them to the latest Mac? I'm playing devils' advocate here...they could have been people who plunked down $1500 for an overpriced Gateway back in 2003 and you turned them on to an iMac for relatively the same price. Again, everyone can claim they switched someone from 1 product to another.
By using words like "inferior" in your posts, you are still not being descriptive enough.
I am a Windows guy because that's what I've been using since 1993...it's also the operating system family that 8 out of my 8 employers have used since 1994...6 public hi-tech companies, 1 school system, and 1 non-profit healthcare company. I have my Mini and I use it for what ***I*** need...video editing. It cost me an arm and leg to buy it (in my opinion since it was $1300) but I couldn't find a cheaper-priced software solution on the pc platform (you're not going to blame MS or Dell for this are you?). And although it cost a lot, it does a great job. My wife also loves it for iPhoto organization (which to me means absolutely nothing). And using Firefox on the Mini is the same as on my XP...ditto for MS Office, Adobe Acrobat, and other cross-platform apps.
So not sure we stand on this broad topic...I'm always up for a good discussion but please try to be as thorough as possible.