Quite frankly, the only software of Microsoft's that I've ever been impressed with is their Office Suite, and even that has gone down hill in the last few years. What they really need to do is stick to the basics. They need to stop wasting resources in fields they are obviously not good at. They /had/ a strong Office platform, they should improve on that. (and by improve, I don't mean "add more features"). If they want to succeed in the OS market, they have to find a niche. Its hard to compete with free. Apple does it by having excellent design and customer service. Apple sells the experience. What does Microsoft sell? Software that companies are too entrenched in. That's no market at all, at least not for long. Now if Window's could claim to be truly secure, and truly quick, and truly light on resources, I might actually use it. In the meantime, free satisfies all my needs.
How has the Office Suite gone downhill in the last few years?
Office 2007 was a major innovation from my point of view. The company threw out an established, yet underperforming UI, taking a huge risk. But it's payed off in greater usability and learnability. The Ribbon user interface (imho) blows away other office suite interfaces.
And the ribbon is a relatively new user experience for such a product as well. This was a huge risk for them considering how widespread office was, but it goes to show you that Microsoft can indeed produce a quality product.
I use open office on my home computers, but at work I use Office 2007, I loathe having to spend time in OpenOffice now, because the interface and usability for Office 2007 is just so pleasant to me.
