How many users actually use MS Office to it's fullest extent? Libre Office is a great app for average everyday user and 80% of business users too, they fall into the same category as well!

Visual Studio... really? That's a developers suite for... wait a minute, Microsoft's proprietary OS!!! Wow, some people?

BTW... these FREE apps are great alternatives to PAID (usually very expensive) apps. Why paid for expensive software (in these hard times), when you can get a FREE app that does what you NEED to accomplish.

Purchasing all the proprietary counter parts to these apps can cost approx. $600 to $800, which is crazy to spend for the average user... Unless of course you pirate your software and you just like the extra bling for show?

I've use everyone of these apps (also their paid counterparts) and all the free ones are amazing to use, even without the bells & whistles the paid apps have, they get the job done... period!

I will agree that M$ have come a long way from the crap software they use to make back in the 90's, I use to struggle half the time, with their unstable apps & OS!

Google docs has everything office has and more.
Plus it's online, and is constantly being updated with nev features.

Sure, there are plenty functional free apps, I never said there wasn't. But they're not better.

I wouldn't dream of paying retail prices for MS software for development, that's what MSDN subscriptions are for (which are also free to MS certified companies).

Of Course VS is proprietary to Windows, why would it not be? It's there own software for their own platform, just like xcode is for the MAC OS and how you can only develop for iPhone and iPad with a MAC.

And with Windows installed on nearly 90% of PC's in the world it makes sense they would only target support for their own platform, they own it.

I'm in total agreement with you Dramscus! I've been using linux since 1996. I've used all the big ones, from RedHat to Ubuntu!

However, I don't judge anyone that prefers M$ Windows, sadly most don't know any better and in most cases I feel sorry for them when they come to me with their issues.

I've switched many people/business over to linux over the years and I can say that 99.9% are happy they made the switch. As for business... all have raised the level of productivity & reduced down time since moving from the M$ software scheme! More productivity = more dollars earned!

I will say this about M$... they do keep me busy & working all the time, without them I'd be twiddling my thumbs supporting Unix & Linux!

Agreed with some of what you said. However M$ Home Server is NOT the best on the market, due to licensing fees for extended amount users!

For me I use Zenytal Server (E-mail, Web, FTP, SSH, Samba PDC & Linux NFS, DNS & Firewall) in a 2 server cluster... which is FREE (and unlimited users)!!! It just doesn't get any easier than that, all browser based configuration. For my DLNA I do a quick apt-get MediaTomb... again FREE and every single piece of hardware that supports DLNA can stream all media.

The best part is I haven't touched those servers in over a year! I just build them and forget them!

I had not heard of Zenytal Server but from what I have just read about it sounds interesting. But whs2011 dose not have a user limit but has a 10 pc limit but i only have 4 pcs at home anyway. I agree WHS was not the best on the market but have you tried whs 2011? imo big improvement on whs and it works out the box this is why I decided to upgrade to it instead of any other free or paid for server. Plus with having the new silver light plug in it means my bro who is in uni at the mo can log into my server remote and play any video or music on the fly via its web site again out of the box.

But I will cerate a VM of Zenytal Server and have alook at it to see if it offers me any more then whs2011.

I stand corrected... the licensing fee is not user based, but workstation/PC based. And No I have not used whs2011... personally I nor my clients have a need for it, but I did test out the original... yuck!

That Silverlight plug-in sounds like a neat feature, but I can replicate that feature with Zenytal... it just takes a user name to be created and some ports on the firewall to be opened. It would take me 2 minutes using a web browser. Or I could use VPN tunneling which is just as easy!

The great thing about Zenytal is that it's scalable & the hardware requirements aren't outrageous! One of my clients has it running on a P4 for an internal web server. I also have another customer running it in a 8 server cluster!

All 30+ of my business clients have at least one Zenytal server (whether they are or aren't a M$ windows shop). Also, anyone that asks me for a home server, that's what I build them... usually using an old PC they have lying around!

Speaking about free software... I use want I consider the best firewall solution, "pfSense". I install that baby on embedded hardware and wa-la, your own little cheat Cisco clone! That is the most rock solid firewall solution, it's fantastic!

you are actualy right i have no idea.. dont know much about pc other then turn it on off and check my antivirus that i hope i installed right to begin with.. lol