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Re: [News] A Generation That Blindly Follows the 'Microsoft Religion'

Roy Schestowitz wrote:

> Have we raised a generation of technology drones?
> 
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | I have been in the IT field long enough to remember when we didn't
> | live in a Microsoft centric world. Several office applications from
> | different vendors existed: Wordstar, Ami Pro/Word Pro, WordPerfect,
> | Word, etc. Everyone had their preferences, based on needs, personal
> | preferences, support and sometimes just on having learned a particular
> | application first. Microsoft's domination in the office and now
> | educational desktop seems to have led to a generation of technology
> | drones. How can competition exist when anything not produced by
> | Microsoft is considered to be a lesser product?
> `----
> 

I remember that too. But I also remember the many problems of compatibility.
I also remember that we were even more locked in with many of those systems
than we were with MS pre-StarOffice.

It was in that time, when MS brought out their first version of Office,
which was very much based around the functionality of WordPerfect (MS Still
owe them for the use of their Style sheet system and many more features, if
the writers of WordPerfect ever want to join the patent wars), but a good
thing MS did do was try to consolodate the document types. As a programmer
at the time I was one of those who received the huge manual of document
formats, the Pope's bible is big, but if he had dropped that formats manual
on his toe he would have spent much longer in the confession booth for
swearing.

It had everything in there down to the last bit-n-byte for every format ever
invented. I made a decent living for a while based purely on document
conversion tools (sigh, if only I hadn't spent it all on beer cigars and
geeky stuff).

MS did aim for the same with the OS, it wasn't a secret, they wanted to give
a single platform so that software writers/vendors didn't have to compile a
dozen or so versions of each thing, with many tsr files to cope with the
differences between systems.

MS did atchieve what they set out to do, and it was wanted at the time that
they started, we can grumble about other areas of MS, but it isn't fair
really to grumble at the success of MS OS because it does (or did do) what
it set out to do.

I think that Linux is now and becoming better at being what MS Win was meant
to be. A single developers platform, truely safe and secure but never
complacent. A machine that any user of any technical level can sit at and
do his/her work or play.

Of cause they are areas still lacking, but not great enough that you can not
opt to be a Linux only house or business.

The problem is though, had it been UNIX clients that had stolen the show, if
everyone were all sat at UNIX/Linux. Would the same anti-MS people now be
anti-Linux? Call me synical, but I can't help feeling that some will be
anti-anything if it is bigger than another. That is why I don't really go
with arguing for anti-MS stuff based on their success or bank balance, it
has to be based on product.



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