can YOU live without Microsoft?
- Thread starter senne
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nkuvu
Gone
This seems like a loaded question. I voted yes (like everyone else so far) but now that I think about it, maybe no. The reason I say that is that there are a lot of websites that depend upon Microsoft OSs, applications, web servers, etc. I'd love to say that every site I visit is run on an OS X or Unix box running Apache, but I can't say that. I'd love to say that every web site I enjoy is coded without the use of tools like Frontpage. Nope, can't say that either.
On my personal machine, I don't use any MS apps. Which is not too surprising in a forum for people running OS X. But What about all of the other companies that use MS technology (such as it is)?
On my personal machine, I don't use any MS apps. Which is not too surprising in a forum for people running OS X. But What about all of the other companies that use MS technology (such as it is)?
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
Could I personally live without Microsoft (as in my usage of MS products)... yes, for the most part. The only copies of any MS products I have on my system are for reading things sent to me from others or viewing sites that don't use W3C standard code.
Could the world in large live without MS... yes. If everything MS vanished today, we would all be in a little better place (though not as good as if they had vanished five years ago). We would see things like OS/2 Warp make a big come back in the personal computing market. And the web would be a much better place (considering Windows minority status as a web server, it still accounted for a majority of the problems on the internet... IIS is an unparalleled security failure that hackers just can't seem to get enough of). I would hope in this better world, formats would become unproprietary standards so that you would have any number of apps that could read a given type of document (sorta like jpg, gif, and tiff, or even to some degree Rich Text Format). Microsoft's primary control over the computer world is Office, and I have felt that more than any other possible punishment for Microsoft, making the Office documents format an open source format that MS could not vary from and than anyone could use for their products would end Microsoft's rain of terror. As for FrontPage, I have never quite understood why anyone would use it to make a web page other than the fact that it is bundled with Office. Maybe without FrontPage on the market Adobe would bring back PageMill.
As for companies that use MS products, it is often been the path of least resistance rather than picking the best solution. Microsoft's monopoly means that they can put out a mediocre enterprise solution, and people buy it without doing any research to see if there could be a better solution for their needs. I can't think of anything MS does that is not replaceable, often with added benefits.
Think about this, how many people with no computer experience entered the IT/IS world by taking MCSE courses? Are those people even aware of alternatives? Would they even try to give their future employers non-Microsoft solutions? Ask the average IT person about anything else other than Microsoft products and watch the reaction... which is usually distaste if MS has a competing product or they are completely oblivious to an alternative's existence (I tried this with Solaris and StarOffice, it was funny).
The point is, we are still at a point where the shadow of Microsoft has not killed off all the other alternatives that are out there.
Could the world in large live without MS... yes. If everything MS vanished today, we would all be in a little better place (though not as good as if they had vanished five years ago). We would see things like OS/2 Warp make a big come back in the personal computing market. And the web would be a much better place (considering Windows minority status as a web server, it still accounted for a majority of the problems on the internet... IIS is an unparalleled security failure that hackers just can't seem to get enough of). I would hope in this better world, formats would become unproprietary standards so that you would have any number of apps that could read a given type of document (sorta like jpg, gif, and tiff, or even to some degree Rich Text Format). Microsoft's primary control over the computer world is Office, and I have felt that more than any other possible punishment for Microsoft, making the Office documents format an open source format that MS could not vary from and than anyone could use for their products would end Microsoft's rain of terror. As for FrontPage, I have never quite understood why anyone would use it to make a web page other than the fact that it is bundled with Office. Maybe without FrontPage on the market Adobe would bring back PageMill.
As for companies that use MS products, it is often been the path of least resistance rather than picking the best solution. Microsoft's monopoly means that they can put out a mediocre enterprise solution, and people buy it without doing any research to see if there could be a better solution for their needs. I can't think of anything MS does that is not replaceable, often with added benefits.
Think about this, how many people with no computer experience entered the IT/IS world by taking MCSE courses? Are those people even aware of alternatives? Would they even try to give their future employers non-Microsoft solutions? Ask the average IT person about anything else other than Microsoft products and watch the reaction... which is usually distaste if MS has a competing product or they are completely oblivious to an alternative's existence (I tried this with Solaris and StarOffice, it was funny).
The point is, we are still at a point where the shadow of Microsoft has not killed off all the other alternatives that are out there.
nkuvu
Gone
I agree that there are a lot of alternatives to MS software. But I do feel that if all MS software suddenly stopped working (irrevocably, not just a crash like normal 
) there would be a lot of effort to get everything up and running again. Specfically because so many people use MS and don't know about the alternatives...
Specifically, there are a lot of companies who use MS operating systems that would have to suddenly replace not just the software, but a lot of the knowledge accumulated for that software. Think of the number of NT admins who know nothing of Unix (shame!). I think that the Internet would be scarcely affected (oh no, fewer viruses! ) but a lot of Intranets would collapse immediately...
) there would be a lot of effort to get everything up and running again. Specfically because so many people use MS and don't know about the alternatives...Specifically, there are a lot of companies who use MS operating systems that would have to suddenly replace not just the software, but a lot of the knowledge accumulated for that software. Think of the number of NT admins who know nothing of Unix (shame!). I think that the Internet would be scarcely affected (oh no, fewer viruses!
) but a lot of Intranets would collapse immediately...
AdmiralAK
Simply Daemonic
I live 90% sans microsoft
I only have 3 things microsoft
1) Explorer for those pesky sites
2) Office for those pesky co-workers
3) Winblows (in VPC) for job training
Tell you one good thing about winblows, it creates demand for me to fix things and that way I make $$$ hehehehehe
Admiral
I only have 3 things microsoft
1) Explorer for those pesky sites
2) Office for those pesky co-workers
3) Winblows (in VPC) for job training
Tell you one good thing about winblows, it creates demand for me to fix things and that way I make $$$
heheheheheAdmiral
ddma
The Most Stupid Member
This is a hard question to answer. For me, I will say I need Microsoft if I need it. Like say, when I am browsering a homepage that is optimized for MS browser, I must have to stuck with IE... And for the reason, why don't I use IE as my primary browser if every home page goes for it? I don't see any browsers on Mac could totally replace IE currently. Like say, OmniWeb is great, but it doesn't support CSS very well. Like say, Netscape 6, but it doesn't have a good UI and slow (compare with IE). Why I have to give up using IE if it has fulfilled my requirements? Because of the name of Microsoft? I am not a stupid computer user. I just choose the right application to do the right thing.
ebolag4
Fundamentalist whack-job
The main advantage for M$ being around is that it fosters competition.
I truly believe that Apple would still be a great innovator of software, but would it push as hard if it didn't have M$ to contend with. I'm not really sure on that score.
To top it all off, how many of us would be the Mac users we are today (as far as creativity, attitude, outlook, etc.) if we did not have M$ around to hate. Much of the shareware community is spurred on by the desire to do something better on a Mac than on Windows.
Like it or not, our lives may be, I said may be, somewhat better because Billy boy started his little company.
I truly believe that Apple would still be a great innovator of software, but would it push as hard if it didn't have M$ to contend with. I'm not really sure on that score.
To top it all off, how many of us would be the Mac users we are today (as far as creativity, attitude, outlook, etc.) if we did not have M$ around to hate. Much of the shareware community is spurred on by the desire to do something better on a Mac than on Windows.
Like it or not, our lives may be, I said may be, somewhat better because Billy boy started his little company.
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
nkuvu,
I think that, considering the amount of time and effort used to repair and/or replace systems after being hit with a number of viruses, it would be (in the long run) less expensive to retrain Windows support people. It is funny when you think about it, but some of the viruses in the last couple years have totally shut down some companies (and in some cases more than once). The question becomes when is a bad thing bad enough to force a change. Microsoft's reputation is not hurting enough to make them take responsibility, but if they started to loss some large accounts, that would get them to stop releasing software where every security hole is just relabeled as a new feature.
But as Admiral said, MS is good for business (at least my business).
I think that, considering the amount of time and effort used to repair and/or replace systems after being hit with a number of viruses, it would be (in the long run) less expensive to retrain Windows support people. It is funny when you think about it, but some of the viruses in the last couple years have totally shut down some companies (and in some cases more than once). The question becomes when is a bad thing bad enough to force a change. Microsoft's reputation is not hurting enough to make them take responsibility, but if they started to loss some large accounts, that would get them to stop releasing software where every security hole is just relabeled as a new feature.
But as Admiral said, MS is good for business (at least my business).
Koelling
I Think Different
I haven't used something Microsoft for a long while now. I am getting to the point where I will have to invest in something that will be compatible with Microsoft to continue this trend but if the Microsoft influence was not there I would not only survive as normal, I would probably thrive. There is nothing in my life that Microsoft makes better. Word documents don't look prettier than Text Edit documents, they are just different and not backwards compatible.
For some people this isn't true but for me, Microsoft could eat s*** and die for all I care.
For some people this isn't true but for me, Microsoft could eat s*** and die for all I care.
julguribye
Registered
If Microsoft died, who would we then hate?
Now that I think about it, I use several of MS's products. I use IE as my main browser, Office for all my homework, MSN Messenger to talk with some people and I have an XBox.
Microsoft isn't horrible, or at least they haven't done anything to me personaly which would make me want to boycott the company. Then again, I did have to use Windows ME for about a year, and also Microsoft Works which isn't compatable with Word .. that was a fiasco. Oh well.
Microsoft isn't horrible, or at least they haven't done anything to me personaly which would make me want to boycott the company. Then again, I did have to use Windows ME for about a year, and also Microsoft Works which isn't compatable with Word .. that was a fiasco. Oh well.
Valrus
Now With Even More Dumb!
I personally could live without Microsoft, I think. The only MS product I have on my computer (to the best of my knowledge) is Internet Exploder, and it's not even in my dock any more because I'm phasing it out and Mozilla and Navigator/Chimera/whatever in.
I use Proteus and/or Fire for chatting, and LaTeX for writing papers. If I need to read a word document I'll use antiword, and I don't come across other types of Office documents very often.
I can't fathom what the global consequences would be if every piece of Microsoft software disappeared off the face of the earth, and I don't know how many of my favorite websites and perhaps companies would go kaput just like that (I'd probably be left without a job this summer), but if I had to delete all my MS apps from my personal computer right now, I could do it, and I wouldn't mind, and it wouldn't even take too long. I just keep IE around in case I find a website that Mozilla or Chimera can't handle.
-the valrus
I use Proteus and/or Fire for chatting, and LaTeX for writing papers. If I need to read a word document I'll use antiword, and I don't come across other types of Office documents very often.
I can't fathom what the global consequences would be if every piece of Microsoft software disappeared off the face of the earth, and I don't know how many of my favorite websites and perhaps companies would go kaput just like that (I'd probably be left without a job this summer), but if I had to delete all my MS apps from my personal computer right now, I could do it, and I wouldn't mind, and it wouldn't even take too long. I just keep IE around in case I find a website that Mozilla or Chimera can't handle.
-the valrus
dricci
Registered
You mean, could I transition to a world where the Internet and Computing is based on open standards instead of proprietary (stolen) formats that require regular fees to Microsoft?
Yes. In fact, I pretty much live my life like that now.
I refuse to use Office, I try to create sites in standard HTML, I use standards-based web browsers (Read: Not IE), I refuse to encourage anyone to use an IIS webserver, I save files as txt, rtf, or pdf, and I just say no to Windows. (And I don't use a Microsoft mouse.)
I think I'm off to a good start.
Yes. In fact, I pretty much live my life like that now.
I refuse to use Office, I try to create sites in standard HTML, I use standards-based web browsers (Read: Not IE), I refuse to encourage anyone to use an IIS webserver, I save files as txt, rtf, or pdf, and I just say no to Windows. (And I don't use a Microsoft mouse.)
I think I'm off to a good start.
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
I realized that which was why I softened my position to the possibility of Microsoft improving their products as a result. Honestly, I would just like to see a more balanced market. Even with all of Microsoft's security problems (vast as they are), viruses would have a hard time moving in an environment were Microsoft had less than 70% of the market share.
We should all realize that Microsoft doesn't want to have to compete. They have come up with a business plan that where removing competitors is better for them than competing directly. Think about Apple, Sun, IBM or SGI, how much do they spend on their operating systems and software? Do you guys think Microsoft spends that much more on their operating systems and software? Now consider the profit earned by each company, Microsoft makes more than an order of magnitude profit on their products... and it is still not enough for them.
And consider this... What do you think Microsoft's biggest problem in the market is today? As it turns out, it is Office 97. People who bought Office 97 and were happy with it (and didn't upgrade to Office 2000) was the biggest problem facing Microsoft in the computer software market over the last couple years. Every person using Office 97 is considered lost revenue by Microsoft. This was the reason behind a change in licensing by Microsoft to try and get customers to pay quarterly or yearly for Microsoft products (and the force registration that came with it). If Microsoft has it their way, computer users would have to be sending a check to them on a regular basis to continue to use their system or software. The massive profits for selling software just wasn't enough for Microsoft, they want continuous revenue coming in from everyone.
Also please don't think this is going to stop at just Microsoft products, because they have their eye on trying to do the same thing with internet access. Their goal, and this is not an exaggeration, is that everyone who uses the internet must be paying Microsoft for their access in one way or another.
