MICROSOFT : THE NEW WORLD ORDER

I don’t know what it is about Microsoft exactly that I hate.

There’s a part of me that’s ethically opposed – in principle – to a huge multinational corporation with a 95% market share. There’s another part of me that’s ethically opposed to a corporation that markets a product that’s fundamentally, a piece of flawed shit. And another part of me that’s ethically opposed to a huge, blundering company that charges a fortune for something that doesn’t work very well. If it works at all.

I don’t know of any other industry that would tolerate that. And to be honest, the only reason anybody buys or uses Microsoft is because… Well, everyone else does don’t they?

Maybe it’s the fact that the whole world is seemingly dependent upon Microsoft. That every desk, every computer, everyone has a Microsoft computer. And that Microsoft just don’t seem to be up to the job.

Maybe it’s the fact that Excel can’t do simple calculations. Maybe it’s the fact the simple Word-processing functions often cause programmes to crash, and lose hours of work. Maybe it’s the fact that often – normally at least once a day – something crashes, stops working, goes kaput, and there’s no explanation why.

At least no reasonable explanation. A report that looks like “Unauthenticated Error Exception Report memory could not be read at 0:0000:00000” sure isn’t in English, if indeed it is in any language. And maybe its gibberish in those languages.

Sometimes the machine forces me to do it : throws a wobbly, performs an illegal operation, automatically switches off, demands I waste time and effort looking after its petulant, poorly-programmed, illogical operating system.

Now, far be it from me to suggest a major multinational doesn’t know it’s R:Drive from it’s E:bow. Far be it from me to suggest that the quality of the programming is, at best, amateurish, the logic being used by the programmers is inconsistent (for example, one programme has the “format” command under View, another has the “format” command under Tools, another had the “Format” command under Options).

And sometimes it can’t even find the basic drivers, it can’t even find it’s basic Operating System. Even when its there under it’s own nose. More than once I’ve had my PC unable to find the C:Drive it runs off, even when there’s nothing wrong with the PC in the slightest, but it just can’t see it.

And the only way to restore that is to reload the whole fucking Operating System and hope you haven’t like, lost everything. Almost as good as C:Format.

That is, of course, unless the system hasn’t already been compromised by the absolute epidemic of viruses (or virii, if you’re feeling Latin), that all seek to exploit every last piece of thoughtless, buggy, amateurish code that Microsoft propogate out there. Unless some bizarre, immoral idiot armed with a bit of code aims to control your PC and use it to ghost-host a Porno website, or use your bandwidth to host traffic, or steal your personal details.

I don’t have to do that with my DVD player, or my stereo, or any other bit of kit I own.

Microsoft systems are fundamentally a piece of shit. Their systems are unstable, poorly designed, full of holes, easily exploitable. They crash at any opportunity, lose you boatloads of work, give you no information worth knowing about said crash, and behave like petulant children holding hostage to all your information. Better have some lollies ready to keep that hard drive happy.

Personally I’d like to see a class action against Bill Gates for mass incompetence in a professional workplace, a mass prosecution for peddling products not fit for purpose, a fine far in excess of the companies profits.