Everyone who knows, hates Microsloth, but it's got all the software written for it, so in my book there's little choice. A saw someone's signature on a BBS recently that went:

*** "The only way Microsoft could make something that doesn't suck is if they began building vaccuum cleaners."

Practically everything they sell was written by some other company.
MSDos was a port from CP/M and ZCPR.
Gates' first program was Microsoft Basic, which he stole from Heathkit. It was Benton Harbor Basic, developed by the University of Michigan. Even his programs bugs and error messages were identical.
Microsoft Word wasn't his. I think it's a port from a Wang word processor.
Excel was purchased. Microsoft bought Ashton Tate in order to acquire dBase.

By the way, if any of you are thinking of upgrading to WinXP's SP3, --- DON'T!!!
It introduces new "features" to prevent you from accessing your Temporary Internet Files, and has some fatal bug in IE. When I tried installing an earlier version to fix my IE bugs, it wouldn't let me, of course.
Couldn't even upgrade/downgrade SP3 to SP2.
Had to reinstall Windows in a new installation. It'll take me a full week to reinstall the software licenses and refresh my cookies.
God what a chore!