Sure we all like to talk smack about Microsoft and how evil it is. Even though that crown is looking more at home on the heads of companies like Google and Facebook the freetard and OSS divisions of the great OS war dream of a day without Microsoft.

The thing is, what would this world really be like?

Would it really be as idyllic as many would have you believe?

Randall Kennedy over at Infoworld asks this question and while his thoughts will produce nothing but snickers of contempt from some he makes some interesting points. This is one such point

Such thinking is naïve, at best. Rather than freeing IT, the demise of Microsoft would plunge the industry into an apocalyptic tailspin of biblical proportions — no visions of hippie utopia here. The withdrawal of the Redmond giant’s steady hand would cause today’s computing landscape to tear itself apart at the seams, with application and device compatibility and interoperability devolving into the kind of Wild West chaos unseen since the days of the DOS big three: Lotus, WordPerfect, and Ashton-Tate.

For all its so-called evilness Microsoft has definitely provided a consistency – that is required within the corporate world – that has benefited our computing lives.

Let the slings and arrows commence on the count of 3..2…1…..