Filed under: Features, Microsoft
Ten things we love about Microsoft
Here at Download Squad we know that the holiday spirit means more than just shopping for the coolest gadgets (you know, for others on our list). The holidays are also a great time to be thankful for all that we already have. Many times we overlook the obvious positives in our lives to focus on the latest cool thing to attract our attention. Those overlooked things do deserve some recognition, too. In that spirit we'd like to send some holiday cheer toward Microsoft. For those of you who just fell off your chair, yes we do believe that Microsoft deserves a big bear hug from us. Here are ten reasons why:- We love that Microsoft spread computing beyond geekdom. Over the last thirty years, Microsoft's unrelenting charge toward world dominance has brought computing technology to the forefront of society. While many will argue that Microsoft is a great hindrance to the spread of computing, we are certain that without the Microsoft-Intel duopoly computers would still be the purview of pocket protector adorned, horn-rimmed glasses wearing geeks (sorry, no offense).
- We love to hate Microsoft. It seems as though Microsoft cannot do right by its
customers. Being the biggest fish in the ocean, it's only natural that Redmond take the heat for any computer ailments we suffer. And, on a regular basis, Microsoft obliges us with one screw-up after another (here's the latest example). - We love Microsoft's recent openness. So many Microsoft employees write blogs. Whether it is an astute marketing ploy or not is yet to be determined, but hearing from the likes of Omar Shahine and Chris Pratley is a good thing. The spread of blogging throughout Microsoft has added a humanizing quality to the company that you can't imagine coming from other tech behemoths like IBM or (especially) Apple.
- We love Microsoft's remarkable agility in the marketplace.
Microsoft is huge, and should, by definition, be slow. While some may
argue they are actually slow to move, we are hard-pressed to find a
better example of a mega-company adapting, and ultimately, dominating
its space like Microsoft. Some companies talk a big game (yes,
Scott McNealy, everyone is staring at you right now) while their core
market implodes; Microsoft has, so far, avoided this collapse. - We love Microsoft's unheralded wealth creation engine. We'd venture to guess that without Microsoft, many of our readers wouldn't have much to do. Whether it be fixing blemishes in Microsoft's
products or building rival applications, we're pretty sure that more
paychecks are generated around the Microsoft ecosystem than any other
software company today.
- We love Microsoft's own wealth creation engine.
Microsoft set the standard for employee wealth creation. Period.
Before Microsoft, it was a rare occurrence for "the Man" to share the
spoils of business with the worker bees. Microsoft changed this, and
ushered in an era of unprecedented expansion of employee wealth
creation.
- We love The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
While Bill G.'s charitable work is not directly related to Microsoft, there isn't any doubt that Microsoft's success has allowed Gates to focus his energy (and about $29 billion) on some of the world's most terrible ailments. - We love Paul Allen's ventures. Paul Allen is our kind of founder. He's no longer involved in the
company he helped build, and, while Bill's off trying to save the world, Paul spends his money in, shall we say, some interesting ways. How can anyone not like a guy who'd build a shrine to Jimi Hendrix? - We love Steve Ballmer.
He's nutty, oddly passionate, sweaty, and bald. That's not the profile
of your run-of-the-mill CEO, nor the type that Hollywood would cast.
That's why we love him. (That, and we love it when he goes ballistic.)
- We love that, from time to time, Microsoft really does innovate.
Yes, we know that Bill G. likes to say that Microsoft is an innovation
engine, but for the most part, we don't see the company as a gusher of
new ideas. When Microsoft does let the creative juices flow, we can
get everything from Microsoft Bob to OneNote. Bob is
best forgotten (though we can't resist rubbing Microsoft's nose in it yet again), but OneNote (and the upcoming update, OneNote 12) should
be considered among the best new applications to be released in the
last decade.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Resource said 10:14AM on 12-02-2005
Without Microsoft, Apple would be king and all you Mac nerds would have nothing to feel superior to.
There would be no windoz$e sucks debates.
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C.K. Sample, III said 10:47AM on 12-02-2005
Micro$oft sucks.
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theking said 10:57AM on 12-02-2005
I think I just threw up a little...
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Jose Andrade said 11:04AM on 12-02-2005
Micro$oft makes us love Linux even more!
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Christian Gonz?z Ver? said 11:31AM on 12-02-2005
get away from microsoft and bob as fast as you can, if you don't you'll pay lots of bucks for a crappy app and even more bucks for a patch to fix it, plus, the new patch wil be called a brand new version that puts you in the edge of technology that takes advantage of your wallet...
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Tom said 11:37AM on 12-02-2005
Haha, #1 Windows is used by majority of people in the world. So everyone must love windows. #2 No matter what you say, Macs suck, they are expensive pieces of shit
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riffraff said 12:28PM on 12-02-2005
I loooove Microsoft, if only for the job-security their remarkably buggy OS provides to those of us who have to fix it.
Linux user #199542 http://counter.li.org/
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Scott said 4:48PM on 12-02-2005
Age of Empires!
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Brian Smith said 12:21PM on 12-02-2005
Look forget the Microsoft/Linux debates for a minute and review the article. Microsoft is not a fast/innovative company. Instead is has held back the development of the internet and computer technology for the last 5 to 10 years! Tell me why the next release of Internet Explorer still won't fully support CSS 1.1 when firefox (and others) are looking toward CSS 3 already! Not to mention security issues which I don't need to mention. As for innovation! HA! They are probably the single biggest thieves of technology and ideas. hrmm what a wonder why IE7 will have tabs, can you say Firefox? Or Opera? Sure I knew you could, but I guess Mr. Gates doesn't care about true innovation when they can't even clean up their own browser from having javascript executing abitrary code. I'd really wish that the Linux developers and windows developers/mac/sparc whatever! would just set asside trying to kill each other and instead try to make the best product for the job, if they would do that they will sell because an app that does what its supposed to do will sell. thats my opinion and i'm sticking to it.
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Azmeen said 12:35PM on 12-02-2005
Although I'm a Linux person, I must say that yeah, Microsoft does receive a lot of stick from us open source folks.
Of course, MS do get a lot of things right at least in the technological and UI aspects.
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jones111 said 1:54PM on 12-07-2005
What the hell made you so superior? Yeah, okay, I fucking get it that you hate "Micro$uck." You fucking childish pricks. Can't you fucking type the name of the company without showing your imaturity?
And you, Mr. "Macs Suck," give some more fucking info if you're going to trash something. Tell WHY it "FUCKING SUCKS!" Personally, I don't own a Mac, nor will I in the near future, but I have respect for them. Macs are more than just a fucking iPod accessory. They are solid machines with a great OS, and it looks nice and runs well. Much innovation there, your prejudice just gets in the fucking way to see it.
You're all fucking childish self-elitists. You don't deserve to have a computer, let alone bash different persons, OSs, and/or companies having to do with them.
Oh, and BOB was just a shell, just like Win3.xx. If you want to blame someone for what was a good idea that happened too late, blame Melinda Gates.
Jones
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John Duffer said 2:19PM on 12-02-2005
"We love Microsoft's remarkable agility in the marketplace."
I tend to disagree with this one (although it definitely use to be true).
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John Duffer said 2:19PM on 12-02-2005
"We love Microsoft's remarkable agility in the marketplace."
I tend to disagree with this one (although it definitely use to be true).
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DigitalStupor said 1:04PM on 12-02-2005
I'm with you downloadsquad...for the most part, the behemoth that is Microsoft has affected us all in ways we don't even realize. I'll raise a glass to Microsoft. After all, I am typing this on my windows box.
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Jan Kabili said 5:01PM on 12-02-2005
Add Robert Scoble to #3 . He's made a huge effort to make Microsoft more transparent. His latest blog is at http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/
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Matt said 1:20PM on 12-02-2005
Sure, IE7 will have tabs because of Firefox. But I get sick of hearing about how all Microsoft does is steal as I watch the linux desktop try and look more and more like who...? You guessed it, Microsoft. Most new Microsoft ideas are to catch up with cool linux ideas and most new linux ideas are to catch up with cool Microsoft ideas. Seems like there aren't a whole lot of new ideas from these two camps. I guess we leave innovation to Google.
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jasonrocksout said 1:20PM on 12-02-2005
I think the biggest point that's being glossed over in the comments, turning the comments into another trash-talking thread, is points 5-7 of why they love MS, and specifically no. 7. You may not like BillG or MS or anything associated with it, but there's no way to legitimately deny what the Gates Foundation tries to do, and how remarkably generous they've been with spreading their cash around. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Gates' at least try to put some of their massive wealth towards the greater good.
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miscblogger said 2:00PM on 12-02-2005
i totally agree with the second point. microsoft has become the butt of many geeky jokes. without it where will we turn to for humor? lol
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Steve Hampton said 2:02PM on 12-02-2005
Seems Like there is a lot of potty mouth but only a few people really saying anything of value. I will try to add some value here.
I teach IT to high school students. I have all three platforms and various distros. I will say that yes microsoft does innovate, so does apple, and the open source community. It seems to me that they all serve a very important place in the IT world.
WIndows lends to more competition and innovation in the PC architecture market place so that there are affordable machines for the masses.
Apple does make great machines and a great OS that works seemlessly together for those willing to pay the extra cash for what is the best machine/OS combo in the market right now.
Linux and the OS community offers the students and future geeks of tommorrow an opportunity to get involved in Tech Development in a way never before available. They can build their on boxs, install free Open Source software and then play around with changeing it, a GREAT learning experience.
So for all you haters out there. We should be giving MS a HUG, we should also send out hugs and kisses to the people at APPLE, and to all those who are members of the Open Source community (which includes SUN and GOOGLE).
BTW I am writing this on My 17" power Book. It sits on a LAN with other machines that Quad Boot-- Win XP, 2K, & 98 and Fedora Linux. They all reside under a LInux server that is a kitchen sink server, acting as a mail, web, file, ftp, authentication, and print server. And I use the Power Book to administer it all. The mere fact that I can setup a system like this, that it is stable and secure and that the IT guys at my school never walk into my classroom, to me makes it seem like my thoughts should merit a little respect.
my 2 cents
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Dave said 6:13PM on 12-04-2005
Everyone loves the hero in the movies, but the hero isn't much without the spectacular villan. Cheers to the most vilified company in tech.
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