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April 3, 2004
Does one vote against Microsoft count?
For the past year or so, I've been thinking about whether it's worth the effort for me to ditch Microsoft, or at least reduce my Microsoft dependency except where it's mandated. I tried Mac, but it seemed to introduce as many barriers as it solved problems, at least for me (I haven't blogged about that experience yet).
The two big questions for me, besides the amount of effort it would take to use non-Microsoft alternatives: is it worth the fight, is the amount of effort it'll take to not use Microsoft really worth the inconvenience; and, does it really make a difference whether I use Microsoft products or not? I frame these in the context of assuming that the longer I wait, the easier it'll get to switch away from Microsoft products.
The area of greatest friction for trying to avoid Microsoft is at work. Though I work for a university, where I would hope there is a great deal of personal freedom, there isn't on critical applications. The official office file format (I've heard) is proprietary Microsoft Office format, and the official calendaring system is GroupWise (though a weak version of GroupWise is available via Web and a slightly less-weak beta version of GroupWise is available for Linux and OS X). There are a number of critical specialty applications that work only with Microsoft's Java or Internet Explorer.
So even though for almost everything I do, I could use Linux or OS X with non-Microsoft applications, for these few mandated requirements I have to use Windows and other Microsoft software or find work-arounds (and the burden's on me to make sure they work seamlessly with other Microsoft users). I guess that's the way Microsoft wants it, that I pay for their software whether I really need it or not, just because other people "need" me to have it.
These are the issues I've thought about and discussed and tried to sort through the last year. I'm sure they are very similar to issues many others are dealing with. And I have to say that when it was just these issues, I decided it wasn't worth the fight. But things seem to be very different now. More on that on Monday.
Posted by pete at April 3, 2004 10:37 AM