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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Friday, April 26, 2002
16:35 - Oh good, I'm not the only one.
http://www.macnet2.com/opinion/oped/index.shtml

(top) link
John Manzione is apparently still seething with rage-- this article of his, in response to the revelation that Bill Gates had threatened to cancel development of Office for the Mac unless Apple bundled IE with new Macs, is a good deal more incoherent than I'd come to expect from him.

But I'd say he has a good reason.

I don't know about you but I know what I am going to do, both personally and professionally. On the personal side it's not much of a risk but on the business side I am about to take a stand against the largest technology company in the world. I don't care about the ramifications of this move either, sometimes you have to take a stand even if you risk losing your audience.

Personally I have removed every piece of Microsoft software on all my Macs. No more Office, no more IE, no more Microsoft of any kind.

Business wise I will no longer accept any Microsoft products for review. I will no longer take a neutral position when it comes to Microsoft. As a matter of fact, every time I get the opportunity to slam Microsoft for its business practices I will do so. I am even considering a new column which will expose the evil that is Microsoft. I'll be looking for writers that want to take this task on.

Sure, good idea. It'd be no skin off my nose to follow suit-- I've been doing so since about 1997. No Microsoft products get past my threshold.


Yeah, I know it wouldn't do a bit of good-- it probably wouldn't even be a blip on their radar if every concerned Mac user were to institute a comprehensive boycott of all Microsoft products. Even if everybody on the planet who had the guts to mothball their Xboxes and turn off their Asheron's Call machines and refuse to watch any show on TV that runs Microsoft ads and refuse to use AVI movies or Word files, they'd still never even notice. Because there are damned few people willing to do such things, even though there are perfectly serviceable alternatives for all of those things. The path of least resistance is just so very attractive. It's just so easy to express defeat-- y'know, ah well, whatreyagonnado?

But I don't care how much or how little it hurts Microsoft. I have no interest in falling prey to the Virtuous Defeatism that Lileks railed against ("No matter how hard we try, we won't have total and cost-free victory-- so we shouldn't even try to do what we can achieve!") when it was yet unclear what we were going to do in Afghanistan. I'm still going to take a stand, futile though it might be.

Who knows-- it might even spread.

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© Brian Tiemann