Anti-Microsoft? Me?
by Volker Weber
Nick is a very good observer. And when he casually said "You are anti-Microsoft" I thought about this for a while. I think he is wrong. It may look once in a while that I am opposed to Microsoft but in fact I am not. Apart from the casual Goliath-whacking there are two things that may lead to this conclusion:
- I try to avoid using their products.
- I despise people who don't even care that somebody might not be using them.
Why do I try to avoid using them? That has a number of reasons. First, they are very expensive. I often do get a free ride, but not everybody does. I don't know how many people actually buy Microsoft Office outside of corporate contracts. I see that almost everybody seems to have it on their computer, but how many of those are fully licensed? Small shops who actually care about licensing often use OpenOffice since it fits their needs just nicely and is free.
The second reason is that they are often misused (think Excel as a database, or Powerpoint for meeting notes). The most glaring misuse I come across every day is people who send text as Word attachments in emails. Do you really think I am going to open an attachment to read a press release? Get a clue. Text travels in email messages just fine.
Third, by using Microsoft products you paint a bull's eye on your head. Almost every malware out there is written for Microsoft products. So in order to use these products I need to wear full armor all day. I recently installed XP on a clean machine. It's really snappy when new. Then you need to install brazillions of software fixes, and it is still snappy. But after SP2 it tells you that you are not wearing your armor. Then you install your Virus shield and things go downhill from there. So I'd rather live in a neighborhood that is quieter.
I don't have to elaborate on the second bullet point, do I? Quickplace up to 6.5 is a product that only lives in Internet Explorer. So it is not a MS product I despise here, or do I?
Which Microsoft products do I use? Windows, of course, since I need it to run my accounting. Microsoft Word (on the Mac) for writing longer texts. It is a habit that I have not broken. Most of my text editing is done with SubEthaEdit, but for long manuscripts I use Word. Funny enough, all of my fellow editors quickly export this to plain text and take it from there. Sadly, there is no collaboration around Microsoft's markup features. And these are people who work with text every single day. I would probably use something like OneNote if it were available on the Mac. I don't use Excel, or I should say, I rarely use Excel.
I do think that Excel is a great product. It just so happens that I don't have any problems that need to be solved with Excel. If Microsoft gets Vista right, and I have reason to believe that they will, it is poised to be another great product. It can actually have less features than XP in my view, as long as they are implemented securely and as long as MS does not play any dirty tricks on competing products.
Mac OS X has fewer problems than Windows. But that is not because Apple has smarter developers. It only runs on a few dozen different machines. It only comes with a ton of drivers for printers but not for much else. Want to buy an after market DVD burner? Good luck. Mac folks tend to stick with Apple gear. Speaking of which, I got a Mighty Mouse today. And I love it! Thanks, Martin.
Comments
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Then you need to install brazillions of software fixes
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brazillions !! you been taking English lessons from George Bush again . . ..
You are a good observer too. :-)
I don't know how many people actually buy Microsoft Office outside of corporate contracts. I see that almost everybody seems to have it on their computer, but how many of those are fully licensed?
It's just a wild guess of mine, but I wouldn't be surprised at if the high availability of pirated Windows software (be it Microsoft products or third party) actually turned out to be a major corner stone of Microsoft's dominance in the consumer market.
Most people (ie. home-/endusers) I know think of using pirated software simply as normal, most of them don't even think about it at all. They buy their cheap Aldi PC and some friend with DSL and an ›affinity‹ to file sharing provides them with every software they think they need.
I at least suspect that things might look different if people really had to pay for all that stuff.
The most glaring misuse I come across every day is people who send text as Word attachments in emails. Do you really think I am going to open an attachment to read a press release? Get a clue. Text travels in email messages just fine.
*sigh* Yeah, for some reason most marketroids are obsessed with idea that their company's press releases have to look different from all the other, has to visually stand out. Screw content ... ;-)
