bendsley

As much of a fan as I am of open source and free stuff, Microsoft does make some good products.

Their business class solutions: Navision, Axapta, Solomon and Great Plains are quite good for ERP/CRM applications.

Office: De facto standard at the moment. We use exchange and outlook where I work. I used it because it's the best solution for what we need. Not sure what we would do without it.

Maps/GPS: Mappoint is really nice.

I'm not ragging on you for not liking microsoft, I'm not a fan either. But don't always bash an entire company because of one program you don't like.

My 2 cents.

__________________
"You hear the one about the fella who died, went to the pearly gates? St. Peter let him in. Sees a guy in a suit making a closing argument. Says, "Who's that?" St. Peter says, "Oh, that's God. Thinks he's Denny Crane."