Selling my soul to Microsoft

[zokudu]

Alright well its looking like the world is moving towards these massive integrated solutions. Google is looking at it with Google Apps, Android, their upcoming chrome OS laptops, gmail etc basicly putting your life in Googles hands. Apple is going for top to bottom integration with the iPhone and the Mac ecosystem.

Its looking like Microsoft is getting into the game with WP7, Office/Office365.
Its looking like the whole tech industry is being divided into little cliques of integrated software.

Its looking like I'm falling on the Microsoft side, I own a WP7 phone I use Bing as my primary search engine I switched to using Outlook as opposed to Thunderbird for my e-mail I use a hotmail account as my primary email account now because of Activesync.

Which side of the fence are you guys looking to go to and why?

 

[VinylxScratches]

OpenSuse and Google with a hint of Apple.

 

[Nothinman]

Debian on my full blown PCs and Android for my mobile stuff. Google seems to be the lesser of the 3 evils.

 

[lxskllr]

I'm moving towards open source. I've long preferred open source apps when possible, and am using it more and more for my O/S too. I don't like the concept of cloud computing, and requiring a network connection to use the computer. Linux gives me the freedom to use a computer the way I choose, without licensing hassles. My phone is dumb, and likely will remain that way for the foreseeable future, but if I get a smart phone, it'll definitely be Android.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I'm awindows guy through and through.
I do not like cloud computing as a core part of any system. It leaves to much data out in the wild. While Google/MS/Apple all have high levels of security, they are also large targets.
Me as a nobody, am much safer with my personal information on my personal computer.
If Windows goes cloud only, I'll switch my ubuntu playing around with partition to my main OS.

 

[Barfo]

Try to force me into the cloud and I'll stop using your software. Simple as that.

 

[DirkGently1]

Google all the way. I like integration and so far i'm enjoying the Google PC features/Android/Cloud approach. If i were using Windows Phone i would probably go the same way as the OP. It's all about convenience really.

 

[Anneka]

Microsoft still has a long way to walk before reaching what Apple and Google managed in mobile department

 

[bruceb]

No cloud apps for me. I prefer all my applications, like MS Office and items like that on my own computer. As well as all the data files on my computer. Simply put, I do not trust clouds to keep my stuff secure. And why should I have to pay to use a cloud, when I can have my programs & data local ?

 

[Nothinman]

Microsoft still has a long way to walk before reaching what Apple and Google managed in mobile department

And that's ironic too since they were technically the leader with WinMo 6.x way back before iOS and Android were even available.

No cloud apps for me. I prefer all my applications, like MS Office and items like that on my own computer. As well as all the data files on my computer. Simply put, I do not trust clouds to keep my stuff secure. And why should I have to pay to use a cloud, when I can have my programs & data local ?

I still prefer local applications as well, but having my contacts backed up into Gmail, Gmail as a backup interface if I can't get to my phone or home machine, dropbox to share files between my machines, etc is convenient. Especially since I'm away from my home PC more often than not these days. And you pay for cloud resources because they're not infinite, you either pay with ads or a monthly fee but you still pay in some way.

 

[bruceb]

Backing up of contacts or bookmarks to the web app is a good idea. You should also from time to time, export your contacts and your bookmarks to your hard drive. I for one, do not want to lose most of them.

 

[Nothinman]

Backing up of contacts or bookmarks to the web app is a good idea. You should also from time to time, export your contacts and your bookmarks to your hard drive. I for one, do not want to lose most of them.

And because of the "cloud integration" I don't have to do it manually, it just happens. I can make edits in Gmail and the phone gets them or vice versa. It's a lot more convenient than doing a manual backup ever week or so and that's the selling point.

 

[Pandamonium]

Apple hardware/os, microsoft office, google chrome, google services (search/gmail/calendar/docs) here.

I use google docs for collaborative work, office for individual work. Gmail/calendar integrate very well with OS X's Mail and iCal applications, as well as their iOS counterparts. My bookmarks are on the cloud via xmarks.

My essential data stays off the cloud until I can afford it. For now, my SSD, RAID 1 NAS, and old external HDD gives me enough redundancy that I'll roll the dice with catastrophic disaster. My wife handles getting our photos online- that's done through facebook.