Today I read a blog titled the same as what I titled my blog post, from PC World, and giving full credit, were credit is due, by Randall C. Kennedy of InfoWorld. Now, I don't know Randall, but I have to say, it was the most lopsided view of the world I have ever read.
Basically, it was an article claiming that the monopoly of Microsoft on the desktop is a good thing. I used to work in telecommunications, and I used to hear the same argument about AT&T.
The fact of the matter is, monopolies are never good, but competition is very good for everyone. It brings prices down, improves quality, and expands the market.
Besides, I know what life is like without Windows. I haven't run any version of Windows since Windows 3.1! I can tell you from my experience, that it wasn't always peaches and creme, but today I couldn't be happier.
I'm currently running Fedora 12 on the laptop that I'm am using to write this blog post. I have all the software I need for everything I do, and it works great. I can interoperate with anyone out there, even people using Microsoft products. Besides that, I have the most stable environment I can imagine.
I don't spend countless hours fixing my system, but spend countless hours getting work done. No viruses, crashes, hangs, or interoperability issues here. I even have Mac's in my home, and my Linux system and the Mac's interoperate just fine. We share drives across the network, e-mail and IM (including video) between the systems, share documents, you name it, and it all works.
Randall's vision of a future without Windows is simply not based on reality.
