<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by crazy canuck:
Because Microsoft's code was not paid for by British Taxpayer dollars!</font>
Newsflash...BA was privatised in 1987.
The taxpayer raised a lot of money out of the IPO. For several years after, the taxpayer got a cut of the Concorde operating profits. BA finally bought themsleves out of the agreement in around 1990. While the price may not have refelcted development costs, it was the best that could be achived.
BTW, Boeing/Lockheed/Douglas etc were all heavily subsidised by US government defence contracting business, so don't give me this British taxpayer malarky. It's just as true of everything Boeing has ever built.
[This message has been edited by LondonElite (edited 10-26-2003).]