Iria

Source: ComputerWorld
_________
September 06, 2007 (Computerworld) -- Ten years ago, Microsoft was the company everyone loved to hate.

The most vociferous Microsoft haters slammed the company for being a greedy industry bully that used its monopolistic, clunky, copycat operating system to force software on users and coerce partners into unfair licensing deals.

Don't look now, but the role of the industry's biggest bully is increasingly played by Apple, not Microsoft. Here's a look at how Apple has shoved Microsoft aside as the company with the worst reputation as a monopolist, copycat and a bully.

WaltC

This article was too stupid, and too full of false assertions and assumptions, for me to stomach reading it past page two...;)

Spare me the techno-n00b who, if he actually knew half as much as he thinks he knows, would be dangerous because of his ignorance...;)

Here we have the classic n00b pathology: person buys product made by company X. Person reads directions on how to use product, said directions being written by company X. Person concludes he is smarter and more intelligent than Company X, and so person decides it "isn't right" that Company X's product works the way Company X says it does as opposed to the way he thinks that Company X's product *should* work. Person becomes irate and agitated because Company X's product works like Company X designed it to work instead of the way said person wants it to work.

For instance, this person brags that he's purchased four iPods, as if by that very act he is now qualified to be *the* reigning iPod expert in the world. Apple, otoh, has both made and sold millions of iPods, as well as designed them in terms of both the hardware and software they use. Yet, this person still believes he knows more about the products than anybody else, and thus more about what they *should* be able to do than anybody else, including the maker of the product, Apple.

But, this person makes a very good point: it doesn't really matter whether we are talking about Microsoft or we are talking about Apple, or anyone else. The ignorant will gladly find fault with *anything* that works like it is supposed to work instead how such a person ignorantly thinks it *should work.* Whether the product is made by Microsoft or by Apple makes no difference at all to the ignorant.

The brilliant conclusion this person reaches is that there's no difference between Microsoft and Apple because both companies design and manufacture products to work in specific ways and to accomplish specific tasks, and evidently he believes that both companies are horrible simply because they did not consult him during the design phase of these products.

So, to that end I have two suggestions for this person:

1) Get a job with either Apple or Microsoft so that you can provide your learned input where it might do some good, or else where you can learn first hand why your ideas are all wet.

2) If you don't like what a Microsoft or an Apple product is designed and manufactured to do--then don't buy it. Hey, how simple can it get? Beats the heck out of spending your money for products you hate and then bitching about them, seems to me.

It never fails in my experience...you can spot a techno-n00b anywhere when his chief complaint is that a given product does what its makers designed it to do, instead of what he thinks it *should* do. These people are of the persuasion that "reading the directions" is sort of stupid. It's really remarkable to read this kind of nonsense.