Just say “NO!”
I am NOT a “Microsoft hater.” In fact they are a great company, and Bill Gates is one very smart guy. But next year’s planned transition to the new Vista version of DOS (sorry I meant to say “Windows) is the perfect time to Just Say NO! Here’s why:
Linux is a powerful, stable, alternative that does everything I need to do. It is open source, so there are no hidden hooks behind the scenes just to make Big Media happy.
Did I mention that Linux is FREE? OK, so most people will pay a modest charge for a distribution disk and manual, But compared to the Microsoft Tax that’s peanuts. And those who are so inclined can buy a CD for under $5.00 USD, or download it if they wish to.
Microsoft is doing a great job with the new MS Office 12. But again, it is time to Just Say NO! OpenOffice does more than I need to do, and it just works.
Did I mention that OpenOffice is FREE? OK, so you can chose to buy some support from Sun Microsystems. There’s nothing wrong with that, since it helps enterprise IT mangers sleep better at night.
What about the MS Internet Explorer 7 browser? Repeat after me: Firefox. The Firefox browser (open source and FREE) has blown the doors off MSIE. Microsoft had gone to sleep with MSIE6, so Firefox sneaked in and showed the world how much better a browser can be.
Join me in my “Just Say NO to Microsoft.” Bill will still capture enough market share that he and Melinda will not have to sell their mansion with a garage for 65 cars.
Bill will be OK, I promise. He’ll be pissed, but he’ll get over it. You have to admit, it is painful when you see your absolute monopoly start to crumble.
BillG, this is nothing personal. Please keep giving massive sums to important charities around the globe. We love you; we appreciate how far you were able to take that embarrassingly poor excuse for an operating system you sold to IBM. They deserved what happened, no doubt about it.
But your day (and the Microsoft era) has passed. Start using the Internet more. Try Yahoo, and Google, eBay and Amazon. They are all damned impressive. And you should spend some time using today’s Linux. Set it up with KDE, and run OpenOffice. You’ll be amazed at how good it is.
September 15th, 2005 at 3:31 am
Ain’t gonna happen.
WHICH version of Linux? What support does it have? If I install it on any of my PCs will everything work pretty much straight away? How hard is it to setup? Could my granny do it?
Techies can ditch Windows, fine. The rest of the world, the MAJORITY, can’t/won’t.
I’ll certainly look at OpenOffice in the future but it’ll be running on Windows which is, for my money, an excellent OS. Sure it’s got faults but it’s a lot better to use than most versions of Linux I’ve used (and I’ve tested many!).
I’d be interested to find out exactly why you think the Microsoft OS is an “embarassing excuse” though. Yes it has faults but what software doesn’t?
As for the “using the internet more” comment, remember that IE3 snuck up on Netscape and it’s siblings are STILL the most used browser on the face of this little planet. If Microsoft decide to “use the internet” more then they have the bulk to charge in and catch up pretty damn fast (see IE7 for more on that as well).
I’m not an MS lover. Just think they get knocked awfully hard ALL the time.
Hey, we could gang up on OSX though!!! ;-)