We are Microsoft. You will be assimulated.

And you know the rest. Yes, I am a Trekkie & proud of it.

Last night I signed up for Passport becasue Microsoft music downloads had a song I wanted without having to install another music player on my system. I mean I already have iTunes, Windows Media Player, one that came with each of my MP3 players (so that is 2), and I think another player that was installed on the system when I got it. Note to music download industry - I DON'T WANT TO DOWNLOAD YET ANOTHER PLAYER JUST TO USE YOUR SERVICE! Complaint number 1, in my opinion, on DRM (digital rights management).

As I was going through the gyrations of getting my music yesterday (as shocking as it may be, MSN does not play well with Firefox. D'oh!) I was thinking about how we all, for the most part, take part in one of the "evil empires" that seem to spring up here and there.

The vast majority of people in the world use some flavor of Microsoft Windows, along with Internet Explorer, Outlook, etc. In the computer world Micro$oft (as many of us spelled back in the day) is probably the current big bad, or at least the perceived biggest bad.

Now I am, and have been for my entire professional career, a Microsoft developer. As a result I, at home, use Windows XP and many Microsoft software. In part because I am too cheap frugal to pay for software when I have "good enough" software sitting on my machine already. That is, for the most part, what all the Microsoft anti-trust lawsuits are about.

However I am not a down the line MS guy. (Excuse me while I disable the implant. ;) ) I use Open Office instead of MS office. MS Office is extremely bloated and far beyond what I need at home. Hell it is, mostly far beyond what I need at work. I use Firefox & Thunderbird for browsing & email. I use a Palm device instead of a Pocket PC. I use Quicken instead of MS Money, although Quicken has, last I looked, still has a big chunk of their market so maybe that is not as contrarian. (Disclosure: I work for a division of Intiut, who makes Quicken. I used Quicken before we were bought out though.)

However I still use Google & Blogger. I finally relented and go to Amazon for online purchases, primarily because it seems more and more of the online book sellers are working through Amazon. I use Yahoo! to get my news. I use Bloglines (which has evil empire potential) as my blog aggregator. I check out eBay from time to time, and have used it to try and sell some extra crap stuff (unsuccessfully).

However is becoming an MS guy lock, stock & barrel any worse than people who refuse to use MS? What about all the Linux zelots out there? Despite my problems in college with Unix (we were an IBM shop and few people really understood it) I would love to use Linux, but just do not have the time. Is one form of herd mentality any better than another? Do we have to quit using a piece of software, web site, or other service just because they are an "evil empire"? I don't have the answers. Personally I am going to keep doing what I am doing until someone can present me with a good reason to change.