Wednesday, May 20, 2009

2 Cheers for Microsoft

I am usually wary of Microsoft because they seem to have dominant power, but I do use their OS and Office apps and appreciate the functionality they give - 1 cheer.

Today I realised just how useful it was to have one company providing all my office apps - and in the place of an internationally defined standard for these apps, how valuable it is to have a de-facto standard.

I am going to the Media140 event today (microblogging and impact of Twitter on news) with my AIB (Association for International Broadcasting) hat on. As I wanted to sign up for their Flickr group, I used my Yahoo account. But I also use Google (for Maps, Mail, Blogger etc) and so I have to scratch my head and see if I want to link data from the different apps and if so how. Lack of standards means more work - and everytime I try out a new app which needs a new user name and password, often with different conventions, the confusion increases.

At least I never have to wonder how to transfer Excel data into Word, or Word into Powerpoint. So a second cheer for Microsoft.

If I think hard, I expect I could even find a reason for a third cheer.