Pick what works for you and leave the rest of us alone (PLEASE?!)

I have been accused of being an Apple "fanboy" (yes, you don't have to be male to be accused of that ;).

This hit an RSS feed and I ran across it in tech news a couple of places I frequent to keep up with things.

Microsoft exec savages Apple's 'struggling, lightweight' tools

Wow, that's a huge surprise, right?

...let the Micrsoft vs. Apple nasty reader comments ensue... Again, huge surprise, huh?

My take, in reality is (regardless of what those around me who know I'm steeped in Apple devices and software may think):

Do you work someplace that is 99.9% Windows based (accountants and who knows who else these days)? Do you NEED the things that are available in Excel or Word? Then by all means, get Office. Do you PREFER the way they work and are comfortable with them from long-time use. Go for it, buy Microsoft software.

On the other hand, do you just want to write some letters to family, friends, even business letters in a small or single proprietor business with no huge IT budget and no need for all the bells and whistles? Then maybe the "struggling, lightweight" tools that Pages & Numbers offer is enough. If that's the case then, go ahead - upgrade to Mavericks and get some quite functional software in the process, for (gasp) free. Nothing is really free of course. You did have to buy something Apple to begin with to get the software. :)

I'm not aware of anyone in a consumer situation being forced to buy one set of software or the other against their will (or phones, or tablets, or laptops for that matter). Don't like they way Pages works? DON'T USE IT. Maybe Numbers isn't quite as powerful as what you want or need in a spreadsheet? Then get Excel.

It's true, I prefer Mac. I like the look, feel and logic of it. Even when they change things, it's mostly familiar to me from long-time use. I'm more productive. It is most assuredly not for everyone. But Marketing has to try to convince you otherwise (for any product). That's their job.

It's kind of amusing that top executives can be so easily goaded into being defensive and territorial - publicly. It's less amusing that people feel the need to do the perpetual comment dance of "you suck... -- NO you suck" on every one of these articles. Buy what works for you and leave the rest of us alone to make our choices based on actual product features.

Dear Microsoft exec... some of us don't want or need all the stuff your Office suite can do and don't really need to spend the money on it. Keep working on those enterprise sales, okay?

(don't even get me started on subscription software for the individual consumer... Yes Adobe, I'm looking at you too on that one!)