WITHOUT paying the "Microsoft Tax" ????
Gee, I came here for political commentary and it seems the anti-Microsoft crowd has hijacked the website for their own purposes.
What fascinates me is to hear a number of ostensibly conservative people salivate over the prospect of bringing the evil, rich, Bill Gates down so that the triumph of the "people" can be complete. Apparently, we are to replace the MS monopoly (dictatorship?) with the Linux (pure democracy?) government.
In my 20 years of computing, I've used everything from Tandy and Amiga, to Apples, Windows, and now, Linux. To my knowledge, NO ONE ever forced me at gunpoint or otherwise, to purchase MS software. It was a free and voluntary choice of my own.
I'm amazed to watch the same phenomenon, that, as a black male conservative, I've seen happen in the political realm. Many liberal blacks have an instinctual and deep distrust and latent hostility toward the Republican party. They chafed under the congressional "stranglehold" of the party and envisioned wanton raping, pillaging and widespread madness just on the horizon. I saw the same paranoia during the 2000 election even to today.
It seems identical to what I see here. As a Christian, I feel compelled to at least TRY and be real with my assessments of people and things. My assessment thus far seems so far wide of the consensus here that I wonder if I'm even running the same OS!! I mean, for crying out loud, you'd think Windows just blue screens 24/7, all your data is immediately corrupted and your teenager is induced into crack smoking; while, on Linux (or Mac OS X) Ed McMahon is on his way over, Arafat just got offed by Sharon...PERSONALLY, and your PC runs at 1000% faster than the nearest Cray.
I'm not trying to mount some kind of stupid protest because I work at the company; common sense and conservative thinking leads me to think that people will vote with their wallets and choose the OS that they deem appropriate for them. As a good American, I give a hearty salute to their right to do so and, as a military reserve officer, I work to guarantee that right.
But let me add, companies are in business to make money, and that's not yet been outlawed by the Supreme Court as unConstitutional yet, has it? When I see people complaining, hoping, chomping at the BIT to see the company toppled, it smacks of more than just a desire for the good of all. It sounds more like many are encouraged in, and foster, and image of Microsoft as a totally morally bankrupt, rapacious, VICIOUS giant rip-off artist interested in nothing more than how they can put the screws to you best today; after two years at the company, I just don't buy it.
Lame software? Maybe. Many of you could sure make a great case for it.
Insecure? That's a foregone conclusion with most.
Evil? That, I totally disagree with.
I like Linux a great deal. It's running on one of 3 machines I have on my home LAN, but I still love my XP box and don't plan on going to the confessional over it.
There is more to it than that. Microsoft IS A MONOPOLY. They do everything necessary, legal and illegal, to ensure the competition doesn't survive. Sometimes they buy people out (legal). Sometimes they create better products to crush the competition with market penetration (legal). Sometimes they rig their software to not work with competitor's products (illegal). Sometimes they bundle competitive software into their OS for free to force a competitor into bankruptcy (questionably illegal).
The truth is, Microsoft doesn't play fair. There aren't any choices because Microsoft has stiffled most of the good competition. I'm all for Microsoft investing its capital to create awesome and needed products. But, when they crush the competition by altering their code to "crash" their competitor's software (they did this with Netscape, Opera, and a host of other applications), I have real problems with their business practices.
The fact is, there was a much more diverse pool of interesting and useful products being developed before Microsoft became the behometh they are, today. Much of the creativity and capitalist incentives have been squashed. Potential competitors, which are commingly one person and a few friends with a small backing of investors, if any, don't know if Microsoft will play fair and buy them out, or just squash them with code manipulation. That stiffles creativity and competition, and that is what being a monopoly is all about.
The new "licensing" gimmicks are a direct result of the monopoly Microsoft has. If competitive producs were able to survive and thrive, they'd never get away with the profit margins they control.
Is Microsoft a great company. YES! Do they have some great products. YES! But that doesn't mean they aren't a monopoly and are playing fair. If Boeing was guilty, Microsoft is certainly guilty.