Although I cannot claim any great machinations on my part, I
discovered last night that I am no longer running any machine with
a Microsoft product installed. This seems strange when you consider
that I have an MCSE (I am in sales and no longer practice), and
that computers are a hobby of mine. I am staring at a wall with six
machines in an empty upstairs bedroom. All of the screens are
staring at me, and none have Redmond's mark.
While many consciously work for this, I have little feeling of
disdain for Microsoft. I have used various Windows machines over
the years and almost always used Microsoft Office and Internet
Explorer. The move away from Microsoft began about two years ago
when I fell in love with the new G4
tower. I grabbed one for my birthday and was suddenly running
Mac OS again after a few years away.
I absolutely loved (and still love) the machine. It had the best
combination of form and function I had seen in years. I began using
the machine as my primary system and relegated my PC to games I
could not shift to the Mac. The PC began to gather dust and fall
into disrepair. I suddenly realized that clean installs of Windows
98 each month were a bit 
ridiculous
when compared to the rock solid Mac machine. I did continue to use
Office 2001 and Internet Explorer 5 on the Macintosh, and I feel
both are very good products.
The next phase was the arrival of a PowerBook Pismo (500) into my stable.
This machine replaced various Windows laptops from the office and
pushed my PC to a deep third on the depth chart. Like a
professional quarterback passed his prime, the PC sat on the bench
while two Macs handled all of my work and home computing chores. I
moved further from Windows while still keeping my foot in the
Microsoft door with Office and Explorer.
The final blow to the Microsoft front began with the
installation of OS X on both of my Macs. I have fallen in love
with the Unix-based OS and find myself working to keep from running
Classic mode or OS 9. I began to use the integrated email
application to replace Entourage - and Omniweb for Web browsing.
Both do a good job and keep me free from running classic apps. The
last tie to Microsoft products was the Office suite. I recently
moved to AppleWorks and find it to be an excellent package. With
the recent update allowing me to coexist with Word and Excel, I
have found that I need never open Office.
The final nail in my Microsoft coffin was installation of Suse
Linux on my PC. I had no qualms with eliminating Windows from the
machine during the Suse installation, and I have had no regrets
since then. I configured the machine to allow me to play with Linux
without risking my much more important Macs. The interesting thing
was that the installation went much more smoothly than my last
Windows reinstall.
As I mentioned, I have no animosity toward Microsoft. In fact, I
really enjoy the Macintosh applications they produce and may use
Office when it's ported to OS X. I have found that for the
first time since I began playing with computers, I no longer
require any of Microsoft's products to handle my daily
operations.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
