A lot of the hatred towards MS is based on class envy and successful corporation hatred that our media so much loves to nurture.
You summed it up perfectly. Microsoft runs as a business should run, not as a philanthropic institution (go figure, Bill Gates runs one of his own full time) and is a success. They’ve succeeded in creating software that computer illiterates like me can use with no problems and has succeed in providing billions of jobs for people with a fat salary and benefits.
It helps people in the politically incorrect way. It helps people who wish to help themselves. People who work hard, get good job skills, and contribute.
Yes that is true, hatred for MS from those that were put out of business by their predation — but for me it is not necessary to lug around either the cost nor the lack of performance as more devices get weaker and smaller. You pay for all the unused capability.
These days email and browser do most of what many need. The only application left that I use that needs more is Quicken, but even they are going online.
And this is where google is headed with their chrome OS.
Even HP is switching to Palm for their nettops and tablet OS.
And then there is free Linux like Ubuntu 10.4 if you really need a full featured OS. But to most it’s just an encumbrance.
No , I dislike them because the company was founded on a fraud perpetrated on IBM and that a few years after that they purposely delayed completion of a version of OS/2 for IBM while they rolled out their newest O/S .. That and Gates had a habit of stealing entire product lines , bankrupting the creators of the products by incorporating others peoples work into windows and then throwing the rightful owners a few bones when MSFT inevitably lost in court.