[humorix] Why You Should Choose Microsoft Word Over vi

[James Baughn <jbaughn@xxxxxxx>]

Why You Should Choose Microsoft Word Over vi
March 26, 2004

In a major new case study sure to grab the attention of
Pointy Haired Bosses everywhere, Microsoft announced today
that the Total Cost of Ownership of Microsoft Word is 94%
lower than that of the open-source equivalent, vi.

"There's simply no comparison," said a Microsoft
researcher.  "We cannot believe that anybody would
seriously use something so primitive as vi in this day and
age.  The same can be said about all Linux distributions,
which universally bundle vi."

The report, entitled "Using Anything But Word Is Truly
Absurd", lists several reasons why vi is inferior to
Microsoft's innovative solution:

* vi produces files with "non-standard" line endings that
  can cause problems with DOS/Windows based software.

* Smart quotes, Wingdings, and other special characters are
  not available in vi.

* While automation is available on vi/Linux systems, it
  does not match the scripting power available to Word
  document macros, such as allowing scripts to delete
  files, send unlimited emails, and repartition the hard
  drive.

* vi depends on a very user-unfriendly interface based on
  1970's technology that does not include such basic
  features as wizards, animated agents, and toolbar icons
  numbering in the thousands.

* Licenses for vi and Linux include viral attributes that
  could undermine your business plan.  (Is it any
  coincidence that you can't spell "virus" without "vi"?)

* Word can easily export to various file formats, such as
  HTML and XML, while vi requires that you manually enter
  the arcane tags and code for these formats.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," boasted the
co-author of the report, an employee in the Microsoft
Department of Spreading Truth About Our Competition. "We
didn't even get into the more bizarre aspects of vi, such
as being forced to use weird commands involving colons and
exclamation points to get anything done.  When I first sat
down and tried to learn vi, I was immediately reminded of
Microsoft Bob -- the only Microsoft product that employees
are allowed to disparage.  But in reality vi is even more
incomprehensible..."

The report gives examples of some companies that have
succesfully deployed Word after considering vi.  One
Fortune 100,000 company president is quoted as saying,
"After performing a what-if analysis using Excel, we were
convinced that exclusively using Word for all documents
instead of vi would save our company $650 per year.  And
based on our accounting calculations using Microsoft Money,
that's exactly what's happened."

Another president for a small company said, "I thought we
could save some money with a small-scale installation of
Linux. But when I tried to get my nephew -- our IT guy with
MCSE certification -- to learn vi, he nearly pulled all his
hair out from frustration just trying to save a simple
file.  Obviously, our experiment with Linux was a
disaster."

Indeed, the Microsoft report cites research indicating that
vi users have 12% less hair than Word users.  "This cannot
be coincidental... it's obvious that vi users are more
likely to pull out and damage their hair," the report
states.

In response, one industry pundit said, "It's not
immediately clear what methodology was used for this
'research'. But the fact that Microsoft produced the report
means that it must be accurate... if you can't trust
Microsoft, who can you trust? Certainly you can't trust the
open source community.  Their main mouthpiece, Slashdot,
can't even avoid posting duplicate stories. What makes you
think their credibility is any better?"


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