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 $29 billion) on some of
the world's most terrible ailments. - We love Paul Allen's ventures. Paul Allen is our kind of founder. He's no longer involved in the
company he helped build, and, while Bill's off trying to save the world, Paul spends his money in, shall we say, some interesting ways. How can anyone not like a guy who'd build a shrine to Jimi Hendrix?
- We love Steve Ballmer.
He's nutty, oddly passionate, sweaty, and bald. That's not the profile
of your run-of-the-mill CEO, nor the type that Hollywood would cast.
That's why we love him. (That, and we love it when he goes ballistic.)
- We love that, from time to time, Microsoft really does innovate.
Yes, we know that Bill G. likes to say that Microsoft is an innovation
engine, but for the most part, we don't see the company as a gusher of
new ideas. When Microsoft does let the creative juices flow, we can
get everything from Microsoft Bob to OneNote. Bob is
best forgotten (though we can't resist rubbing Microsoft's nose in it yet again), but OneNote (and the upcoming update, OneNote 12) should
be considered among the best new applications to be released in the
last decade.
With Vista, Office 12, and other critical products
to be released in the coming year, Microsoft's fate for the next 30
years could be determined in 2006. We know it's hard to get emotional
about a multi-billion dollar company, but we ask you to join us in a
virtual hug for Microsoft this holiday season (hey, somebody's gotta do it).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
12-02-2005 @ 10:14AM
Resource said...
Without Microsoft, Apple would be king and all you Mac nerds would have nothing to feel superior to.
There would be no windoz$e sucks debates.
Reply
12-02-2005 @ 10:47AM
C.K. Sample, III said...
Micro$oft sucks.
Reply
12-02-2005 @ 10:57AM
theking said...
I think I just threw up a little...
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12-02-2005 @ 11:04AM
Jose Andrade said...
Micro$oft makes us love Linux even more!
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12-02-2005 @ 11:31AM
Christian Gonz?z Ver? said...
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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12-02-2005 @ 11:37AM
Tom said...
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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12-02-2005 @ 12:21PM
Brian Smith said...
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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12-02-2005 @ 12:28PM
riffraff said...
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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12-02-2005 @ 12:35PM
Azmeen said...
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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12-02-2005 @ 1:04PM
DigitalStupor said...
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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12-02-2005 @ 1:20PM
Matt said...
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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12-02-2005 @ 1:20PM
jasonrocksout said...
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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12-02-2005 @ 2:00PM
miscblogger said...
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
Reply
12-02-2005 @ 2:02PM
Steve Hampton said...
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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12-02-2005 @ 2:19PM
John Duffer said...
"We love Microsoft's remarkable agility in the marketplace."
I tend to disagree with this one (although it definitely use to be true).
Reply
12-02-2005 @ 2:19PM
John Duffer said...
"We love Microsoft's remarkable agility in the marketplace."
I tend to disagree with this one (although it definitely use to be true).
Reply
12-02-2005 @ 3:04PM
Mark D. said...
Wow, glad to see some well-formulated replies near the end there, it almost descended into "Windoz3 Micro$h4ft" idiocy there. I could see the guns loading from the Lin, Win, and Mac sides ready to rip each other apart over the fact that they refuse to believe something might have merit, even if they don't like it.
Me personally, I work on windows pcs and macs all the time, and dable with linux on the side. I generally like them all since they serve specific purposes well, and what one OS lacks the other has, it feels like every OS zealot only sees in black and white, when they really should be seeing in shades of gray.
Also, Steve Hampton, you make especially good points.
Just in response to #8 on the tabbed browsing:
Though I'm unsure of Opera and it's extent of tabbed browsing history, I used to use several different IE-derived browsers way before Firefox and they had tabs. It's definately nothing new, but don't act like it was an original idea for any of the other major browsers, it's been kicking around for a long time, even AOL technically had multiple browser windows in one workspace for years (and contained in the one program, which was a major detractor when it'd crash and lose the session.) Nobody cried when Firebird had tabs, and it wasn't their idea, why should we weep over Microsoft doing it? We could all be indignant over a major company accepting a popular feature, or we can be glad that finally Joe Six-Bit will get something of use added to his online experience. The majority of IE users may never feel inclined to acquire and learn a new browser, but if their default one slowly evolves to be more useful, well, maybe they would. Change may be good, but people fear it, a subtle shift like this could make the idea of changing out a major program like a web browser less of a hurdle for your average mom and pop user.
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12-02-2005 @ 4:48PM
Scott said...
Age of Empires!
Reply
12-02-2005 @ 5:01PM
Jan Kabili said...
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/
Reply
12-02-2005 @ 8:45PM
Michael Boman said...
Microsoft has been improving a lot since Bill Gates & Co. went on the secure computing crusade. I used to be a Linux zealot, and I still can't be productive on a Windows machine without installing CygWin on it, but I agree with Nitin Badjatia (the article author), especially for #2.
Think about it, what would Linux, BSD and other free OS's be if people didn't look at Microsoft and said "I can do better then that"...
Personally I don't care what OS I use anymore, as I am running applications - not operating systems - and some are better then others (note: I have Linux, Windows and OSX at home. My Sparc machines are getting a bit old to be used on a daily basis thought, but they used to run Solaris for me as well...). And as an IT Security Consultant I see vulnerable machines everyday, regardless what operating system they are using.
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