The Microsoft / Anti Microsoft Conundrum

Ah...Microsoft... I have such a love/hate relationship with this corporate giant. For years, my techie geek computer genius friends have been warning me about Microsoft Corporation and their sneaky corruption upon the world of average Joe computer users. They all avoid Microsoft products as often as possible and encourage me to do the same.

And yes, I am moderately aware that there exist Microsoft alternatives out there for a reason. Lots of people hate the company. Observe, for example, this website link by The Microsoft Boycott Campaign. Read the introductory summary for the site. It says:

"Tracking the anti-Microsoft movement since 1997, the MSBC Superlist now links to more than 160 Web sites and nearly two-dozen Usenet Groups. The sheer size of this list proves that overall public sentiment towards Microsoft ranges from mild dislike to outright rage, and the number of people opposing the company grows by the day. Next time your Windows PC locks up and loses hours of hard work, remember that you are not alone. Then come here and join us in some good-natured venting."

The anti-Microsoft links listed are so abundant that they are organized alphabetically in three separate links. Yikes. I'd say that's pretty self explanatory.

I've known of this site and other anti-Microsoft coalitions for years but I guess you could say I'm a bit stubborn. I mean, yeah, Microsoft Word is way more temperamental than is efficient. Not to mention that little paperclip assistant guy must incorrectly think he can read your mind. I find myself often saying, "No, Microsoft Word. I actually do not want you to insert numerics each time I break the paragraph and additionally, - I appreciate you looking out for me but I prefer to keep my "I"s lowercase for a reason so please can you try to resist capitalizing them automatically?" I hate Microsoft Word and resent that it is an industry standard.

What, though, about Microsoft Excel? It's a really good program. Or better yet how about my personal life management dream come true, Microsoft Outlook? I am 100% smitten with MS Outlook email (and everything else!) program. It has changed my life, reduced the amount of physical clutter in my house and has made my entire life substantially more organized and satisfying. You could not pay me to voluntarily get rid of this program.

As you can see my love/hate relationship with the Microsoft Giant has left me quite torn. But for the most part, since the start of my career as a PC user, I've accepted Microsoft for all of its collection of strengths and weaknesses. It is what it is. And yes, MSWord is extremely annoying at times (though I have to confess that I actually find that know it all paperclip guy I mentioned earlier to be fairly charming for some reason).

And yes, dear techie geek computer genius friends, I know I know I definitely agree that the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser you despise so much is less than satisfactory. Pop-ups, spyware, viruses, browser hijacking attempts; Internet Explorer seems even more susceptible to these computer killers than even the controversial AOL program.

But there is also the fact that some web pages, in my experience, do not work or read correctly in alternative browsers such as Firefox. Some web programmers design their sites to work best with Microsoft Internet Explorer, most likely because most people don't know any better than to not use it.

So what does one gal such as me do about this apparent Microsoft/ anti-Microsoft conflict?

To be honest I really would love to not use Microsoft products, but I have to face the facts. They do the job I need them to do in the end, they are universally used and Microsoft Outlook is absolutely hands down unmatchable as far as I'm concerned. So I think I've at least for the time being made up my mind.

I very much welcome and encourage anyone with an opinion on this Microsoft anti Microsoft controversy to contact me with your thoughts, words of wisdom, advice etc or leave me a note in the comments section. The more I learn, the more perspectives I get on the matter, the more equipped I will be to do what's smartest, most secure and most efficient for my poor little always breaking computer.

I think, though, that I'm going to take a passive, wait and see approach to this matter. That is, until something happens to my computer that I can pinpoint directly as a result of a Microsoft owned application, I'm going to keep on using what I am using.

Risky? Perhaps. But it will save me time and energy that I'd otherwise have to spend on the arduous process of getting Microsoft off of my machine and figuring out how to replace it with something just as capable. On top of that it offers me one less opportunity to screw up le pauvre computre even more by trying to maintain it on my own as I stubbornly insist on doing instead of taking it to a legit professional.

My decision has been made through the process of constructing this article.

Congratulations oh Microsoft Giant. You sucked me in too. (For now).