About the M$ incentives, as NJ5 says, they're preparing for the future. If you look at what's happening around the financial world, you'll notice that people are getting laid off, that will propably cut down peoples will to upgrade their computers (and this means less operating systems sold). Companies cutting down their investments and sacking staff means less operating systems and office applications sold for companies. Also, Apple has been gaining ground on laptops.
Netbooks are getting more and more common, up to an extent that Apple is showing interest to the market and Nokia is going to release its own netbook.
Apple and Nokia are important players, since both have big resources and neither is dependant from M$ operating systems. Apple uses its own OS and Nokia could go with Symbian. The key here is, that leaving M$ out of the equation, you could sell your computer cheaper and have better profit margins at the same time.
The main interests for netbooks are emerging chinese and indian markets, while they are eating up a chunk from the western markets.
Add Google, with Web 2.0, as the service provider on non platform specific applications, and you'll notice what's the position of M$ at the moment.
Ei Kiinasti.
Eikä Japanisti.
Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.
Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.
