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Microsoft is so big and successful that they inevitably attract their share of detractors.
Lots of big companies out there that I don't dislike.
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But I think over the years they've done a lot more good than harm to the tech landscape.
This is what they want you to think. "We have done a lot of good." The only good Microsoft has done has been accidental.
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They're in a much more difficult position than any other company - they have to write an OS which will run on a virtually infinite number of hardware configurations, maintain backwards compatibility for their existing users, continue to improve the security and stability of their product, all while making everything easy enough to use for any random grandmother.
Wah. So they have a difficult task. This doesn't give them the right to screw the industry as a whole.
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No, their business practices are not always the most ethical, but they're stuck in a no-win situation. As a recent example, they were going to include antivirus software with Vista, but that sparked antitrust concerns. So now it will only be available as a paid add-on and people will doubtlessly bitch about the lack of security and profit motives instead.
They dug their own hole. If they had designed a multiuser system in the first place, we wouldn't have so many security problems.
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They don't have as much power as people think.
Yes they do. It is called "Embrace and Destroy" and Microsoft is very, very good at it. What they cannot embrace and destroy they buy and shelve. This is my big gripe with Microsoft. I don't care about the 95% monopoly, or the buggy software, or the constant crashes, but what really gets me intentional destruction of public standards to lock the industry to the Microsoft monopoly.
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If there was a viable alternative desktop operating system, it would be available from PC manufacturers. It's easy to get a server with Linux preinstalled, even from Dell.
.... and how many years went by before Dell started to offer Linux as an option? I remember buying my first Dell and begging them to reduce the price by the cost of the OS, which I didn't want, and they could not do. It wasn't until the antitrust stuff came out that Microsoft relented and allowed the computer makers to offer an alternate OS. If you think Microsoft wasn't the one preventing the computer makers from putting out a linux version of their hardware, you are very mistaken. Oh wait, Microsoft has no real power, silly me... 
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I'm sure Microsoft would rather sell a copy of Windows 2003 with each box, but it just doesn't work that way. There's too much market demand so Dell won't cave. Linux just isn't competitive with Windows as a desktop OS yet, although open-source evangelists would prefer you believe that Microsoft Black-ops are keeping it repressed.
I don't think Microsoft tries to kill the open source software, but they certainly don't help. Have you ever looked at the Microsoft specifications for the windows media codec? The EU forced them to release the specification, so Microsoft complied, with an ode to obfuscation.
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But you'll see, if and when it offers comparable functionality to Windows, it will start popping up on more and more low cost machines. After all, as hardware gets increasingly cheaper, a Microsoft OS is becoming a significant percentage of the computer's total cost. It's not like Internet Explorer stopped people from installing Firefox when a better alternative came along (only 64% of our visitors use IE).
Tell that to Netscape... I'm sure they will feel better...
This is another great example of why I dislike Microsoft. When was the last time Microsoft added a great new feature to IE? About the same time that they finally destroyed Netscape. True innovation.
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I know people will argue this point with me, but I'm a computer enthusiast, I have command-line Linux experience, and it still took me like a week to get Gentoo and KDE working with all my hardware. There's no way I'd recommend it as a viable alternative to anyone who doesn't enjoy tweaking and troubleshooting their PC (not everyone does!)
Gentoo isn't an easy distribution to use... it is meant for those that wish to eek the last clock cycle from their system. Other distributions are very easy to use if your hardware is on the compat list. To be fair, if your hardware isn't on Microsoft's compat list, you will have just as difficult of a time.
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And don't forget that Bill Gates founded and endowed the world's largest charity which is working on practical solutions to serious problems facing third world countries. The guy seems to have a genuine desire to do good, since there are certainly cheaper and easier ways to generate good publicity.
Ah yes... and how long was Billy the worlds richest person before he started to donate money? I guess late is better than never when you are trying to buy, I mean win, public opinion.
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So I dunno, they're not perfect, they're responsible for their fair share of proprietary standards and such, but they've also done a good job uniting the industry behind a common platform and moving it forward.
They have destroyed almost every single open standard that is. They don't create their own specifications, but rather than change the ones every body else uses so that they only work with Microsoft products. They do not play fair and return the changes they made back into the open. Embrace and destroy.
The only reason they have united the industry behind a common platform is because they own the common platform and it is in the best interest of their monopoly if everybody else uses the common platform. Again, if they really wanted to help the industry, they would release the standards, not keep them closed.
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And I think they're on the verge of reinventing themselves, like IBM did after their antitrust suit. I predict the coming years will bring a leaner and more focused Microsoft which responds to issues more quickly and is less averse to open standards.
I don't see it. I think they are pretending to be a better company, but I have yet to see anything that indicates they are doing anything at all different.
Cool... thanks for the write-up, Ythan. I used yours, line by line, because you summed up the pro-microsoft side fairly well, and I know you wont get offended by my ranting. 
My only real gripe with Microsoft is their Embrace and Destroy strategy of open standards and their refusal to release their own standards to the non-Microsoft world. In both cases, I wouldn't care if they didn't own 95% of the market. Rather than share, they act like a spoiled child in a candy store. If they were a small player, I wouldn't expect them to share... but as the only real player, and the self-proclaimed saviors of the computing world, I wish they would practice what they preach.
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Just another spore in the wind.
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