Just Pin It on Microsoft

Computerworld - Microsoft has become the company that the computer industry loves to hate. It's downright fashionable these days to blame everything on the "convicted monopolist." But that attitude also serves as a convenient vendor smoke screen that distracts the industry from more important issues -- such as building good products, listening to the customer and developing new technologies.
Is Microsoft truly responsible for everyone's failures in this industry? To listen to its competitors, one might think so.
Vendors that can't compete have always needed someone to blame, someone to sue. Why not Microsoft? What other reason could explain why competitors' "technically superior" products fail to catch on? How about this: Many vendors are so cocksure that they know what's best for corporate IT that they fail to listen to what IT managers really want. Instead, they try to force-feed managers technologies they don't need. Microsoft has no monopoly on arrogance.
If there's one thing Microsoft is good at, though, it's listening to the customer. In fact, one could argue that the problems technologists hated most in Windows 9x -- poor security and a lack of reliability -- are a direct result of listening too closely to end users, who were demanding ease of use and ever more features. With its stated reliability and security initiatives, Microsoft now has a laser focus on the needs of corporate IT, and the ship is slowly turning. The lawyers are ready.
Few companies have been vilified to the extent that Microsoft has. Even cigarette maker Philip Morris (now Altria Group Inc.) gets more respect these days. In online forums, a subculture of hate has arisen where Microsoft has been accused of everything short of building weapons of mass destruction. And those who view alternative technologies as a personal religion see Microsoft as a threat to their very existence. The Great Satan must be toppled.
Far removed from these arguments sit most corporate IT managers, who don't care about intrigue. They want products that make good business sense. Products like Microsoft's Exchange, SQL Server and Systems Management Server aren't gaining ground in corporate America because they're being forced on IT. They're getting in because they have features IT has been requesting.
And the idea that Microsoft's products are inferior is bunk. If you don't believe that, ask a corporate programmer who has worked with Visual Studio .Net and the .Net Framework. Or an Exchange 2000 administrator. Or early users of Windows Server 2003.
In most cases, Microsoft has consistently churned out technically solid products. Are they