It is now becoming more and more common for users to look beyond Microsoft for their day to day software. Lets have a look and see just what is out there to provide choice, as opposed to just using Microsoft for the sake of it.
A few years ago if you where to ask a computer user what software they used for various operations the answer would be something like the following.
- Office application - Microsoft Office
- Email client - Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express
- Web browser - Microsoft Internet Explorer
Now things have changed, although for the majority of users the answers will still be the same, there are however a growing minority of users who have looked past Microsoft to seek out alternatives. The Firefox web browser is a prime example of a non-Microsoft product that is rapidly gaining market share. Some analysts believe The Firefox web browser takes up to 18% of the market share.
Lets have a look at some of the tasks the average users would carry out on a daily basis and look at some alternatives.
Office applications.
Microsoft Office has literally dominated the Desktop office suite market for many years, Microsoft's marketing power and product bundling with new machines has ensured they retain their impressive lead within this lucrative market. The plus side to Microsoft office is it is feature rich. It empowers the user to become more productive in their day to day tasks, the downside is it can be expensive.
There is however a free office application that supports pretty much the same features as Microsoft office.
It is also compatible with most documents that have been created with Microsoft office. This piece of software is called Open Office.
The OpenOffice Office suite is a rich selection of office applications that allow you to do pretty much the same
tasks as you would do with Microsoft Office. For example you can open and manipulate documents created with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and more. You can also save your edited or created documents with a Microsoft friendly file extension and later open them again with Microsoft Office.
It is possible to use Microsoft office and OpenOffice within one environment. Documents created using one system can be opened, edited and saved with the other.
Although OpenOffice and Microsoft Office are very much the same, they do look, feel and operate differently. This is probably one of the main reasons industry hasn't jumped on the OpenOffice bandwagon as of yet. With Microsoft office you get a system that is a perfect companion to Microsoft Windows. It behaves in exactly the same way that the user is used to with other Microsoft applications. With OpenOffice things are done differently. As a result staff would have to be retrained on how to use the software correctly.
However the learning curve is not steep and for the average home user the time spend learning to use OpenOffice may well be worth it as opposed to the cost of licensing a copy of Microsoft
Office. Each does have a learning curve, it's just a case of each system doing things differently.
Email Clients.
Microsoft Outlook and Outlook express are the most popular email clients available today. Microsoft Outlook is actually a component of Microsoft
Office. The free version, Outlook Express is a Microsoft Windows component. Outlook Express is technically free, although you do have to purchase a copy of Windows in order to use it so in reality the cost is built into your windows licence fee. Outlook Express is basically a stripped down version of Microsoft Outlook, it is a very basic email client designed to send and receive email and also check newsgroups. The same features and more can be found in alternative applications such as Thunderbird.
Thunderbird is a free email application developed by the Mozilla Foundation. It contains all of the features you would find within Outlook Express and many of the features available
from within Outlook.
Thunderbird allows you to manage your email and newsgroups. it also allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds and manage your contacts list the application has the same look and feel as Outlook Express but
is supplied with many more features than the default installation of Outlook Express. Thunderbird has advanced Spam and scam fighting features that try to protect you by alerting you to potential Spam
and scam emails. It does this by connecting to a remote database and checking the
mail as it is received. You can use thunderbird to manage multiple email accounts and it allows you to use the software with multiple Windows users. Each user has their own accounts and settings.
One of the great features to be found in Outlook with it's contact manager. Thunderbird offers the same feature and it also works in very much the same way as the conventional Outlook contacts manager. You can also import all of your existing contacts to Thunderbird when you install the software. It will detect what email system you currently have installed and offer to move all your existing contacts and also accounts over from the existing software to Thunderbird.
In the majority of cases Thunderbird will be able to be used as a direct replacement for your existing email application, but there are some exceptions, for example Active Sync will not work with anything apart from Microsoft Outlook. This can be vital if you intend to carry out synchronisation between your pocket PC or smart phone and your PC computer system.
Web Browsers
Without a doubt Internet Explorer is the most popular web browser currently in use, but this doesn't stop other companies providing alternatives.
Firefox For example is slowly but surely cutting into Microsoft's Market Share.
Opera is also up there as a real competitor to Microsoft within the Browser market. Web browsers are very simple to use and someone who has experience using any of these browsers will surely be able to get the most from them all in a relatively short time. The browser developers have all settled for simplicity within their applications. By keeping the software simple it is easy for users to migrate from one to another.
Both Firefox and Opera have made it very easy to set the browsers up. When you are carrying out the installation it will prompt you if you want to copy your bookmarks favourites and cookies from Internet explorer to your new browser. This makes the migration very simple.
Even although Microsoft have a clear lead in the browser market share, there is nothing to say this will last. Remember what happened when
Netscape used to be the dominant browser supplier, you do remember Netscape right? Where are they now.
If a company employs the right approach and builds a better browser than Microsoft Internet Explorer then there is no reason why people wouldn't choose to switch. In such a fast paced industry nothing is set in stone. Users are getting wise, and know that alternatives are out there.
In recent times Mozilla have taken stops to actively promote their Firefox web browser. They are marketing it using Google. Web users are being invited to download the Browser along with the Google Toolbar. Google gain by generating toolbar users, Mozilla gain market share of their web browser.
The days of consumers just accepting what they are given along with the Windows
operating system are limited, users want choice and the software companies are only to happy to deliver it.
