Is it wrong to love Microsoft?

Hyperblaze

Lifer
May 31, 2001
10,027
1
81
http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1645

Microsoft is perhaps the most hated company in the history of business. Anointed with names such as the Redmond Giant, Microshaft, Microsloth, so on and so forth, the nicknames and jokes are perhaps exceeded only by the vengeance with which people hate it.

The question is why do they? I love Microsoft. Absolutely adore it and what?s more, I hate Linux. I think it?s the most over rated piece of software ever built and survives simply out of spite and not because it is terribly good at doing something because it is not!

What has Microsoft given us? It has given us Windows, sure, it was buggy earlier and a lot of things didn?t work like they were supposed to (plug and play springs to mind) but it was a pioneering effort. No one was even close to the ease of use that Windows offered. Sure, Mac OS was a lot prettier but then it cost the moon and the stars along with both your arms and legs.

I understand the criticisms about the security of the software, the critical flaws and what not but again, we must look at things in the proper perspective. More than 95 pecent computers in the world use one form of Windows OS or another. The remaining being divided between Linux, MAC etc. now lets say MAC has 1 percent, does it make sense for a hacker to create a virus that can at best infect just 1 percent of the computers in the world? It doesn?t, therefore you don?t have as many security threats for other software as most of the people developing Linux probably sit at night writing up malicious code for windows!

In a nutshell, it?s not so much as that the software is secure; it?s simply that no one is interested in spending sleepless nights writing a virus that won?t give them the satisfaction they get from causing havoc. Considering the fact that everyone who knows how to write two bits of code dreams of hitting windows with a virus, the guys at the "Redmond Giant" are doing a spectacular job.

XP is such a joy when it comes to simply connecting a device and watching the pretty little bubble detecting it and saying "its installed and ready for use" makes the slightly high price absolutely worth it. In Linux, you have to recompile a kernel if you want to so much as change your modem! Give me a break guys, Linux is light years behind Windows XP and I am sure it will be further back biting the dust when Longhorn (now Vista) comes out.


This reminds me of the bundled issues with the antitrust lawsuits being slammed on it. It?s just sad, unfair and uncompetitive. Basically what the stupid courts in Europe said was, hey, you?re doing a great job, and you must pay for it! This coming from a bunch of people who couldn?t even agree on a constitution!

And of course, the long list of lawsuits that Microsoft is straddled with. I am sure it is a business model for companies such as Sun and Oracle to just sue Microsoft whenever their profits are down due to insanely stupid and useless products that no one is buying.

Every year, just before the FY results are out, Mr. McNealy sits with his board and shakes his head, guys, we are in the red, what do we do? How do we turn it around? Suddenly a bright face says, I know, let?s sue Microsoft for a billion odd! Bill can afford it, after all, he makes such smashing products that everyone buys them, making him rich! That ought to be a crime in SOME court!

Microsoft made some products which it would like to ship together with its OS, no where in the EULA does it say that "you are not authorized to install other software" If Mr. John Doe thinks media player is the worst piece of software he has ever used, he is free to go and download Winamp or Musicmatch Jukebox (neither of these offer free full versions).

Lets be fair and honest about this. Here is a company that single handedly created the market for Personal Computers, brought computing to ordinary folks like you and me, made it affordable by encouraging mass acceptance and constantly strives to provide us ease of use in every sphere it touches. From tablet PCs to handhelds to media centers but he didn?t do it for free and wants to protect it?s own interests. What is wrong with that? After all, the people who are suing Microsoft, aren?t they looking after their interests as well? Why do we think or believe that if they were in the position Microsoft is in, they would do things differently.

I do not for a moment think or believe they would be philanthropic and give away years of toil away for free or act in the best interests of everyone but themselves. It is about time we stopped being hypocritical and appreciated a job really well done.
 

Schadenfroh

Elite Member
Mar 8, 2003
38,416
4
0
My main problem with microsoft is that they are too proprietary. If they built there software around industry standards more often and not create proprietary formats, i would respect them a good deal more. But hey, its America, they got every right to make the most money possible:beer:
 

neutralizer

Lifer
Oct 4, 2001
11,552
1
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Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
My main problem with microsoft is that they are too proprietary. If they built there software around industry standards more often and not create proprietary formats, i would respect them a good deal more. But hey, its America, they got every right to make the most money possible:beer:

They are too proprietary? Hello?! Look at Sony and Apple.
 

Red

Diamond Member
Aug 22, 2002
3,704
0
0
As I understand it, they have monopolistic business practices... like trying to strongarm countries/organizations to use their software with grants, etc.
 

bleeb

Lifer
Feb 3, 2000
10,868
0
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Can't we all get along... the point is Microsoft is a Monopoly and historical evidence dictates that Monopolys are BAD for everyone except Microsoft.
 

Leper Messiah

Banned
Dec 13, 2004
7,973
8
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Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
My main problem with microsoft is that they are too proprietary. If they built there software around industry standards more often and not create proprietary formats, i would respect them a good deal more. But hey, its America, they got every right to make the most money possible:beer:

WTF are you talking about :confused: They are the industry standard.

I guess my problem with microsoft, mainly is that they price gouge. But hey, we all buy it (or not...) so more power to them. The little nagging things like hotkeys that don't match between office apps and versions of office...also they should be employing the best and the brightess to make an actual secure OS. Right out of the box. Apparently they aren't. XP is stable, hopefully Vista is stable and secure
 

remagavon

Platinum Member
Jun 16, 2003
2,516
0
0
I enjoy microsoft products, and I agree with some of the (slightly uninformed) comments about linux :)
 

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
62,919
19,153
136
Methinks someone is too in love with Microsoft to write an impartial article. This one is no better than a pro-Linux article written by someone who loves Linux.
 

Gl4di4tor

Senior member
Jun 8, 2001
808
0
0
Originally posted by: bleeb
Can't we all get along... the point is Microsoft is a Monopoly and historical evidence dictates that Monopolys are BAD for everyone except Microsoft.

Thank you.
 

rh71

No Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
52,844
1,049
126
I like the fact that they make things intuitive and practical, despite bugs, etc. A lot of others make things more complex than it needs to be or too user-unfriendly.
 

Mucho

Guest
Oct 20, 2001
8,231
2
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Originally posted by: bleeb
Can't we all get along... the point is Microsoft is a Monopoly and historical evidence dictates that Monopolys are BAD for everyone except Microsoft.

:thumbsup:
 

They're pretty boring at this point. Vista copies OS X in a way a middle-aged guy would try to dress like a teenager because he's having a mid-life crisis :)

 

AbsolutDealage

Platinum Member
Dec 20, 2002
2,675
0
0
Originally posted by: L3p3rM355i4h
Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
My main problem with microsoft is that they are too proprietary. If they built there software around industry standards more often and not create proprietary formats, i would respect them a good deal more. But hey, its America, they got every right to make the most money possible:beer:

WTF are you talking about :confused: They are the industry standard.

I guess my problem with microsoft, mainly is that they price gouge. But hey, we all buy it (or not...) so more power to them. The little nagging things like hotkeys that don't match between office apps and versions of office...also they should be employing the best and the brightess to make an actual secure OS. Right out of the box. Apparently they aren't. XP is stable, hopefully Vista is stable and secure

Even in a small application, it is nearly impossible to write bulletproof code. Now, take that tiny little project and make it hundreds of thousands of lines of code...

If there is one thing you learn in the security world, it's that anything this large can be comprimised, given enough time and motivation. It just happens that a lot of people have it out for Microsoft, and make a hobby out of spending their time finding the cracks to slip through.

Making anything "secure" out of the box is impossible. For as many testers as you have on the development team, there will be someone somewhere who can find the holes that the testers miss. There will always be a hacker somewhere who thinks about things differently, or comes up with innovative ways of using existing framework, etc, etc, etc. Even if you hire people to come up with hacks like this internally (which Microsoft surely does), you cannot cover all the bases.

It all comes down to numbers, really. Does Microsoft increase the testing team by exponential numbers and push the release out another year in order to wring out the last few percent of bugs? Or, do they release when planned, and know that there are esoteric and extremely hard-to-find existing bugs?. If you are a project manager at Microsoft (or any company for that matter), you choose the second one every time.
 

Platypus

Lifer
Apr 26, 2001
31,046
321
136
That's possibly the most ignorant thing I've ever read.

Despite what you think about any operating system, they all have their place. To ignore this and only say one is better than another is simply ignorant and shows the author obviously has never worked in the real world.
 

Kalbi

Banned
Jul 7, 2005
1,725
0
0
how can a monopoly be bad in the OS industry? imagine if there were 10-15 different OS's...that would cause so much bottleneck and inefficiency. however i do agree msft makes way to much money for wat they do.
 

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
62,919
19,153
136
Originally posted by: Anubis
as much as we like to hate them, computers would not be what they are today without MS

I don't think that's true. Somebody else would have taken their place. They haven't done a whole lot of innovation.
 

eigen

Diamond Member
Nov 19, 2003
4,000
1
0
Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Originally posted by: Anubis
as much as we like to hate them, computers would not be what they are today without MS

I don't think that's true. Somebody else would have taken their place. They haven't done a whole lot of innovation.

There NakedFrog goes again.Being reasonable and not feeding the trolls.

I use up to 4 OS on a daily basis.This just makes me hate them all.
 

sonz70

Banned
Apr 19, 2005
3,693
1
0
Originally posted by: CorporateRecreation
That's possibly the most ignorant thing I've ever read.

Despite what you think about any operating system, they all have their place. To ignore this and only say one is better than another is simply ignorant and shows the author obviously has never worked in the real world.

Because in the real world we all used non-window machines. Actually in the real world, window's probally saves companies a good amount of money from the simplicity of using the OS
 

davew0670

Golden Member
Apr 24, 2003
1,132
0
76
I used to like ms until they just came out with that authenticity checker on tuesday....baaaaastads
 

supagold

Member
Jun 21, 2005
60
0
0
It's all perception. People hate Microsoft because they're the big kid on the block, so by shouting out their love for linux / OS X / CP/M, they can show how different and underground they are. I personally don't think much of linux as a desktop OS yet, but OS X has become a pretty decent OS. However, Apple is exactly as evil as Microsoft; they steal just as much from other companies (even from MS), their DRM stuff is just as bad, their support of proprietary standards just as bad, etc.

I totally agree that with the poster that said that it's good to have a monopoly in the OS world. That's not to say that there should be only one OS, but it makes life much easier. I spend most of my day on a Mac running Tiger, and I like it a lot. However, I know that for every neat utility on my Mac, there's probably 10 utilities that do the same thing, and usually more, on Windows. Hell, I can think of 4 Windows versions of the Dock, each of which has functionality the Dock doesn't. This isn't because Windows is an intrinsically better OS than Tiger, but because nearly everyone uses it.