Cynicism is the last refuge of the idealist

Ballmer: Microsoft Is Intent to Deliver Value

I’m sorry - does my hatred of the Beast of Redmond show???

Steve Ballmer, henchman extraordinaire to Bill Gates admits that Windows (spit) Vista (double spit) is just a poor copy of OS X - his justification - that enterprise managers don’t keep tabs on what’s happening in the Mac world - so that justifies plagiarism, does it, the ignorance of IT managers

Some Microsoft critics say that many of the features in “Longhorn” already exist in other operating systems. How do you respond to that?
I don’t hear that from enterprise customers. They don’t look at the Mac. They just don’t. Some people will say some of the features are kissing cousins to features they’ve seen elsewhere, and that is true. I’m not apologetic about the fact that we should, in a way that doesn’t offend anyone else’s intellectual property, study and learn and benefit from the work others have done.

I’m sorry but I can’t wait till the rest of the world wakes up and stops buying their bug-ridden insecure bloatware

In fact, I’m not sorry - this is a rant saying wake up world and put these people out of business

LXer: 10 Days as a Windows XP User: A GNU Perspective on Things
As if we need any reminding of the dangers of using windows - the tale of woe of a Linux user’s experience of installing windows XP on his machine

I do not consider Windows ready for the desktop. I found it difficult to use, buggy and lacking in security. I also found technical support lacking.

While Windows captured a significant portion of the desktop market, the product is clearly not a good fit for consumers who do not understand the risks associated with logging on to the Internet. The costs of providing aftermarket products can run higher than the price paid for the hardware.

As a gloating Mac user, I can definitely confirm that I have had a very similar experience when trying to sort out my brother’s laptop which was infested with spyware, viruses and trojans and is still disinfecting itself nearly two weeks later. My brother is virtually technically illiterate and so was not aware of the dangers of connecting to the internet. He was so fed up with the level of infection of his old Windows Me laptop that he went and bought a Win XP machine from Dell and was attacked within 30 seconds of connecting to the Net - how bad is that??