Clever metaphor with a lot of good insight. Things aren't quite that bad though. The biggest dealership in the universe (IBM)—way bigger than Microsoft—is betting the farm and their future on the free high-tech tank. The free tank is both the present and future of electronic business. IBM employes something like 4000 engineers just developing more free code to increase the power and usefulness of the free tank.

Check out the Netcraft survey and you'll see that Microsoft has never captured more than about 24% of Internet sites and is currently at 21% and falling. On the other hand the free and wonderful tanks of the world serve over 62% of the world's Internet sites and the share is rising.

People who buy station wagons only use them to shuffle kids around. People with real business to do go for the tanks most of the time.

      - Mark