Microsoft creates a mannequin and forces me to learn how to dress it. Google generally allows its systems to adapt to how we work. And too many people and businesses fell under Microsoft's spell, being forced to make communication more complex and more expensive than it has to be.
In the end, we're all in the information business. Just because the bosses don't get the picture doesn't mean information has to be pretty. E-mail, for example, seldom requires pretty fonts and colors. I don't value the information in e-mail more because it has strange fonts and arrives in color and Microsoft RTF--which is not true RTF.
Google is universal. Gmail did relent and allowed some colors and fonts. It's a streamlined version of what Geocities used to be. Personalized expressions in information transmission. Add to that, voice, documents and project collaboration. But we were brainwashed on a platform whose future is clouded by complex licensing schemes and is inflexible.
While Microsoft is constantly band-aiding its creations, Boeing's defense systems are moving forward with a fine-tuned step-child of Linux. And I moved on from Windows Mobile Smartphones, which crashed and hung so often that it was worthless.
It is amazing that dozens of teams, many of them the brightest in their field, on Microsoft campus couldn't perfect an operating system. That speaks to the corporate culture, a top-down mindset that hampers development.
Can ornate Bing ever Google? All signs point to no. Not when you want businesses to fork up hundreds of thousands of dollars for incomplete products.
[Update: and someone's upset in general--about Google, Adobe and god knows what else. It's amazing that Jobs didn't take on Microsoft. He must be in the same business camp.]
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