Best and Worst Microsoft Products?

Tony Austin
Monday, 13 October 2008 14:47

Opinion and Analysis

With its vast resources Microsoft certainly has developed (and continues to develop) some excellent products. But they have also rolled out some very average ones and even some real shockers. Do you agree with this list of the goodies and the baddies? Have your say!

Just about everybody uses or at least has used Microsoft software, and many still use them almost exclusively (I suspect this includes the bulk of iTWire readers, but tell me if I'm wrong).

Maybe a small minority have spurned the Windows family permanently, in favor of Linux or something else and in some cases almost as a religious belief! For example, there's still a small and forever dwindling band of OS/2 devotees who steadfastly refuse to give up that once-promising operating system (a joint development between IBM and Microsoft that started of with a bang but definitely finished with a whimper,  killed off by Microsoft's decision to focus all its resources on its Windows family, leading to ultimate market dominance).

Anyhow, there's a new slideshow "Best and Worst Microsoft Products" over in the security area at eWEEK, presenting the following split:

• Best Products - Active Server Pages, Exchange Server 2003, Office 97, OneNote, Visual Studio .NET, Windows 2000, Windows Powershell, Windows Server 2003, WSUS 2.0, Halo
• Worst Products - ActiveX, Bob, Hotmail, IIS 5, Internet Explorer 6, Outlook Express, SQL Server 2000, SMS 2.0, Windows ME, Windows Registry

You'll have to look at each slide to read why they selected these. Remembering Of course, some of their choices are pretty self-evident!

That got me wondering what my own assessment would be, leading me on to wonder what readers of iTWire would have to say. ... Any products left out of either list, from a security perspective? And then, what if you extend the list beyond security to encompass usability, reliability, cost, licensing, or whatever?

PLEASE READ ON...