By encouraging users to use other products such as Linux, MAC, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, etc. we force software companies and projects to increase stability, performance, and features.
If more users used products other then Microsoft's then they would in turn need to better their offerings. As they increase their products features, performance, and stability users will depend that alternatives to Microsoft's products also increase. Competition is a good thing and healthy competition leads to advances for all of us.
Users who do not use Microsoft products are less likely to experience viruses as most of these are written for the masses (i.e. Windows, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Office).
Viruses are easily propagated today as once a security hole is found the majority of users have this same security hole. By reducing the number of users that use Microsoft only products we reduce the number of identical security holes. This decreases virus propagation which reduces traffic on the Internet.
We can not move everyone off of Microsoft products nor should we as this will just move the problems from one platform to another ore one application to another. However if we encourage users to look at options they have and in doing so we convert a percentage of them to other products everyone will see the benefit of better products and less virus propagation.
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Competition & Security for all
By encouraging users to use other products such as Linux, MAC, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, etc. we force software companies and projects to increase stability, performance, and features.
If more users used products other then Microsoft's then they would in turn need to better their offerings. As they increase their products features, performance, and stability users will depend that alternatives to Microsoft's products also increase. Competition is a good thing and healthy competition leads to advances for all of us.
Users who do not use Microsoft products are less likely to experience viruses as most of these are written for the masses (i.e. Windows, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Office).
Viruses are easily propagated today as once a security hole is found the majority of users have this same security hole. By reducing the number of users that use Microsoft only products we reduce the number of identical security holes. This decreases virus propagation which reduces traffic on the Internet.
We can not move everyone off of Microsoft products nor should we as this will just move the problems from one platform to another ore one application to another. However if we encourage users to look at options they have and in doing so we convert a percentage of them to other products everyone will see the benefit of better products and less virus propagation.
Just my two cents....