[MegaButts]

While I think you make a lot of good points, I just want to point out a fun fact.

> When a small company in New Mexico with no experience tells you they're going to revolutionize computing, just walk away.

This is a perfect description for Microsoft in 1975, which was founded in New Mexico.

[mikekchar]

To be fair, MS did not revolutionize computing when it was founded. They didn't make anything that everyone else wasn't already making. I'm trying to think of a single thing that they did before the company was worth a billion dollars that was in any way revolutionary, technically. I can't think of a single thing (lots of stuff since then, BTW, but I think that's a bit unfair ;-) ). They executed well, both in development and in business and they had a good combination of good business foresight and lucky breaks. They were also pretty ruthless.

[spc476]

They sold software. Before Microsoft, there wasn't much (if any) of a market for just software, independent of the hardware.

[throwawaycert]

I know. :) It's fun in two ways, in fact. In one way, I could say "See? New Mexican companies are all criminals!", but in the other, I can point out that Microsoft, while scrappy, was basically trying to sell something they knew they could build - and everyone else more or less did, too. They made something important, and evolutionary, but not revolutionary.

Any company that says "The revolution is here!" is suspect, but if they can't actually give you a device that brings major, practical, commercially important changes, it's probably bullshit.