sergio masci wrote:
> No it's called planned obsolesence (Economics 101) ...

Which college teaches "planned obsolescence" in Economics 101?

> What would happen to car manufacturers if they made rust proof cars?

Nothing. In fact, the industry is already moving in that direction.

I live in Arizona (desert climate, 300 days of sunshine a year). Guess what? 
People still buy new cars.

Finally, look at city buses. A few decades ago they were all-metal. Today, 
most buses are built with fiberglass panels.

> With regards to "more money for Apple", I seriously doubt that someone
> that has bought a wintel box is going to chuck it and buy apple because he
> doesn't like vista s/he might revert to a copy of xp until a better
> version of vista comes along then just maybe he'll pay for that to get
> what vista promissed in the first place. How have M$ lost, they are using
> their age old tactics of FUD (fear / uncertainty / doubt) to make
> (average) users want to upgrade.

There we go again, with more Microsoft-bashing emotional nonsense.

> I remember one of my lectures telling us "don't build them a rolls royce
> if you can sell them a mini for the same price, once you've saturated the
> market with minis, then start selling rolls royces". In other words sell
> whatever crap you can get away with today for as much as you can, then go
> back and sell the same punters better crap tomorrow.

I'm sorry you had a stupid professor. :)

I'm joking of course, but you don't build minis or rolls royces, you build 
what the market wants.

More often than not, you just need to build something adequate. In such 
cases, aiming for better performance or adding bells-and-whistles is a waste 
of resources.

Consider tanks in WWII. The German Tigers were far superior to the Pattons 
and the T-34s, in every category. Yet the latter won the war.

Vitaliy 

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