It would be a horrible buy for any polarising brand. Microsoft is about as marmite as you get in software (along with Oracle perhaps) regardless of their recent attitude to being open. We have to be past the point where anyone with purchasibg power believes you can aquire credibility.
> Microsoft is about as marmite as you get in software (along with Oracle perhaps)...
Sure, I have fond memories of the days when trendy developers would see me using a ThinkPad instead of a MacBook and ask, "Mike, when are you going to move away from the dark side?"
Not so much any more. People I talk with seem reasonably impressed with the way Microsoft has been open sourcing .NET and other projects, making Visual Studio Professional free (as in beer), etc.
Now Oracle, that's a different story. We all still love to hate them!
I find this to be true of younger people who aren't aware of Microsoft's past and don't look at them with the sideways glance the rest of us do. In fact, I find it amazing how many younger people never even heard of their dark side and all the anti-trust movements on two continents.
Apple is more antitrust than Microsoft ever was. Bundling a browser with your OS (while still allowing users to install an alternative) is nothing compared to the restrictions in the iOS app store.
That's not an "anti-trust" action by itself and bundling the browser was only part of the issue against Microsoft in the US and more of an issue in the EU.
I grew up hating M$, plus I'm British so we get the whole EU anti-trust thing to boot.
But over the past few years Microsoft has made huge strides, especially the work the two Scotts have put in. Huge amounts of source code open source, their PAAS running all sorts of OSes in VMs, etc.
It isn't the late 90s any more, those that look askance at Microsoft these days seem rather old fashioned given the new shenanigans that are going on.
I'm painfully aware of Microsoft's past, but it's not like Apple can (still) be considered the good guys either. It seems that some of the Apple crowd are learning this the hard way over the recent drama surrounding App Store policies.
My gut reaction to a ThinkPad will likely be better than to an MBP, simply because there's a higher chance it runs something other than OSX and Windows.
Remember the dark side of IBM, ten years before Microsoft? And look at how open-source folk treated IBM, even ten years ago. Companies can be rehabilitated.
