Is Microsoft trying to thwart Linux?

Yes I know, an oxymoron of a statement. Well apparently they are going to release a thin version of XP to the US soon. Since the Dell Redhat deal I guess it has them thinking. If the OS comes without many of the bells and whistles which it surely will there is a window (pun intended) of opportunity for OpenOffice to expand and other opensource projects to make advances which MS will surely kill off in order to sucker the poor dolts that purchase their crippled OS into buying more of their defective software hence making the people even more co-dependent than ever. It is a strategy that if I was in Microsoft's position that I would hav played long before now. It is too late for them to have as much success with this tactic because now the public is becoming more educated about opensource alternatives. This idea was probably in their contingecy scenerio pile and now that bluffing is no longer an alternative they have played their last hand. It could potentially frustrate users that see no economic advantage in the OS once they find out how little they can do with it and turn more people to Linux which would be priced competatively and have more features.