can YOU live without Microsoft?

[marmotton]

Saying you don't need MS is like the French saying you don't need to speak English.

Well sorry, but at some point they have to speak it, and you know what? they do, too.

 

[pezagent]

Originally posted by RacerX
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).

How would the demise of Microsoft put us in a better place?

We would see things like OS/2 Warp make a big come back in the personal computing market.

You're kidding me, right? Why don't we just bring back the Commodore 64 while we're at it.

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).

The web would be a better place? With Netscape and AOL? I don't use my macs for surfing--they're too slow. I get a better experience with Windows, and I'm still using W98.

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).

Please wake up and smell the XML.

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.

I think Microsoft has more control over the computer world than Office. Bill Gates isn't rich because of Office. Maybe if the dicks that ran Apple into the gutter years ago listened to MS, AppleOS would be on more desktops than Winblows. But Apple was never ready for that, so they blew it. Here's a life lesson for wan: learn how to recognize an opportunity when you see it.

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.

You're not serious, are you? Adobe has this little number called GoLive, have you heard of it? People probably use FrontPage for the same reasons people used Claris Homepage.

As for companies that use MS products, it is often been the path of least resistance rather than picking the best solution.

I agree with you, but from an idealistic point of view. Business has a profit-agenda and you can't argue with stockholders about what's best for a corporation if change doesn't affect the bottom-line. Sorry, but that's reality.

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.

Microsoft's monopoly is just like any other monopoly. I don't understand anymore why people are so concerned about Apple's success. Apple used to have a monopoly on the GUI market and they blew it. And if your speaking from an IT perspective about enterprise solutions--well, we're in the corporate political agenda again. Apple hasn't come up with an alternate solution to this problem, either, so whatcha gonna do? As far as Microsoft being replacable, so is Apple or any other system--benefits being subjective.

 

[Inline_guy]

As far as apps I use... Yes. I do not use many (if any) MicroSoft apps. My roomate however needs Office for work.

Matthew

:: inlineguy.com ::

 

[chevy]

I could even live without a computer.

 

[fryke]

As the question says 'can' and not 'could', I think it's important to think about whether you really need MS software in your life. If Microsoft vanished this very day - and all Microsoft software would vanish from my computer, I don't think I'd really have a problem. I'm using OmniWeb instead of IE already, I'm _never_ writing my stories in Microsoft Word now since five years (and I've written quite a few, and yes I've written my first book in 1995 on Microsoft Word 5.1a on a PowerBook 150). I sure have some files to view, but I think there's enough ways to view MS files.

If MS won't vanish today (and I think we can safely assume that), I won't kill Office v. X just yet. Too many people think it's important to send me their texts in Word format (and, of course, to use a funky font). But I shouldn't have bought it, really. I sort of thought that I might start to use Word as my word processor, but TextEdit has everything I need, really, and Okito Composer gives me even more.

 

[kommakazi]

Yes, with great ease.

Anyone can, those who voted no are just too brainwashed to realize the truth. Unless Bill Gates has a death warrent on you stating that if you don't use his products you give him the right to have you beheaded. Who knows, it could be in the Liscence Agreements for all M$ products, nobody just never realized cuz, well, who actually reads that sh*t?

There's always an alternative. Just because you don't know of it doesn't mean it's not out there. Look around, you may see the light.

 

[Oscar Castillo]

I can certainly live without Microsoft at home. At work though I do not have any choice in the matter. Wintel is the platform and I have to recommend software for that platform.

 

[mkwan]

play on a mac, work on a pc so that I can make more $$$ to buy more mac!!!!

I could imagine myself working in Microsoft and I accidently leaked out the Windows source code to the world. Then, Bill will probably kill me or make the rest of my life miserable.

after that happens....I could start liking Microsoft stuff.....



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