🚀 go-pugleaf

OK, my resistance has broken down and I must now insert my $.02....

This discussion reminds me of the heated arguments I hear among automotive
hobbyists regarding Ford vs. GM vs. Chrysler products, or domestic vs.
foreign automobiles. No, it's not a perfect metaphor, but I have always
found it interesting how "Joe" won't have anything to do with Ford because
they're nothing but trouble, while "Frank" swears by them and has never
owned a GM product that was reliable.

In my case, I have a little experience with Unix, a little more experience
with Macintosh, and a lot of experience with DOS/Windows. Unix was good and
reliable, but on the (admittedly rare) occasion anything ever went wrong,
finding anyone who knew how to fix it was a real adventure. Granted, that
was before the Usenet really caught on, but the point is that when there
was trouble, I was days getting it fixed. Macintosh, IMHO, is a toy. I have
yet to find it useful for much of anything that I can't do with Windows,
and with Windows I can do a whole lot more. I find the Macintosh very
frustrating because it is so difficult to get close to the hardware. On the
other hand, I have never had any maintenance problems with a Macintosh --
they seem to be very reliable -- it's just that I don't find them very
useful.

Now, as far as Windows is concerned, I have been running Windows 95 since
it was first released, and also have a Windows NT machine that is only a
few months old. I have never had one lick of trouble with either one of
them that wasn't solved either by digging a little bit (what has changed on
this machine in the last few days that could be causing the problem?) or by
calling Microsoft support. Maybe I'm just lucky, but IMHO Microsoft support
is top notch. I have had only one or two occasions to call them and I
always had an answer in short order (except for the time on hold was a
little excessive).

Does Microsoft have a monopoly? Is it illegally using that monopoly to gain
monopolies in other markets? I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. The Justice
Department has investigated Microsoft a number of times (and may again now
that the deal with Apple has taken place) and, other than a slap on the
wrists for the nature of their contracts with computer manufacturers over
the terms of licensing the OSs, the Justice Department has pretty much left
them alone. For me, though, whatever Microsoft's business practices are, I
love Microsoft software. I find it easy to use, robust, and powerful.

I have never experiences all these crash problems that people talk about on
this NG. Of course, I never experienced all the crashes that people
complained about with Borland's compilers when I was still using Borland
C++ either. I am, though, pretty anal about keeping my machine maintained,
which probably helps minimize problems.

So, for me, if you don't like Microsoft, don't buy their products. You do
have choices. Oh, those choices aren't as good as choosing Microsoft you
say? Well, if you want to make a statement against Microsoft you're going
to have to make some sacrifices because IMHO, Microsoft makes the best
software available, at least for the Windows platform. Unix, Linux,
Macintosh, Sun, OS/2, etc? Well, I no longer have enough exposure to these
systems to really judge, but if these OSs were THAT superior to Windows,
don't you think either they would be beating Microsoft and that more ISVs
would be writing software for those platforms?

[ Now donning my flame resistant suit and ducking for cover :) ]

-- 
Stephen A. Ecker
Technical Analyst
Wausau Financial Systems, Inc.
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My opinions are my own, not necessarily those of my employer or anyone else.