I think MS would get a lot more votes if they somehow been "new" like the other 3 (ok apple isn't new, but they haven't been nearly this "cool" until the 2000s). MS just isn't "cool" enough (thx apple ad's?) even though a vast majority of people still use their O/S.

And oh sheesh, I just remembered microsoft makes xbox. While PS3 is obvioulsy a reasonable substitue, I probably spend more time on my xbox than google/facebook/iphone combined.

This is a really good point. I got many a problem with Bill Gates, but he was the one that realized that software was more important than hardware when it came to computers. That single idea took a machine that had been hanging around for 30 years (at least in electronic form) doing not much and advanced it almost exponentially.

I voted Microsoft. It was close between them and Google.

Anyone who votes for Facebook should have their face eaten by a chimpanzee and/or banned.

In before, but it has Mafia Wars.

yep, msft gets a lot of hate from the average person, but few of those people realize what a pain their life would be without msft products.

While i tend to agree with AKSpartan's point about competitors being able to offer similar products using these successful companies ideas, it would be years before something of similar quality is delivered. Google's search, for example, has been a work in progress for 15 years, and it is still being improved today (and is still the company's most important, and most worked on, asset).

But it has Farmville.

I own and run a small business with 18 computers networked with two servers, one for shared files and stuff and one exclusively for Filemaker Pro. I'm able to access my Filemaker Pro from my laptop outside the office and now, with the introduction of Filemaker Go, from my iPhone. We use iCal with BusySync for our shared calendar, iChat for inter-office communications (I actually use Adium, but almost everybody else uses iChat), and probably a bunch of other Apple stuff I'm forgetting. I probably could have figured out how to do all this on PCs, but it was incredibly easy on Macs. I have probably saved in the six figures over 10 years on computer **** I've been able to do myself (and, yes, spent maybe $20K more on hardware than I would have on PCs).

So for me it is Apple AINEC.

curious, but why didn't you consider something like Google Enterprise? its only $50/person/year.

Microsoft 100%. The world would shut down if all of their products were gone tomorrow, which you really can't say about any of the others.

If we are only talking about personal use I'd probably keep Google around, even though I own an iPad, iPhone and macbook. I think anyone choosing Google or Facebook has to think about how comfortable they would be without Windows OR OSX for their daily computer use.

I ****ed up and took the survey backwards.

When Mafia Wars and Farmville came out, I almost killed my page right there until I figured out how to remove all those friggin' updates about crops and ish.

microsoft obv

Can I use Microsoft's search engine????

Yeah. Would be a big PITA to play poker on a mac or linux box. This could change is HEM is ported and the clients catch up.

Is it just me or is Facebook a really odd addition to that list. Getting a lot of users to eat up time is well and good but they are a single website offering nothing particularly unique and they have yet to turn any kind of profit. If Facebook is on there you should be also including stuff like Twitter imo.

If the question was about making the other companies cease to exist then that's fine and it's a way different question.

You can't do internet research without Google? I'm unclear on this - you "would have" switched to Linux but haven't yet? So you have no idea how difficult your life may become when you finally drop Windows, what programs you won't be able to run anymore, etc.? Just because you think they suck doesn't mean you can do without them easily.

I believe they have turned a profit, and are valued at ~$20-30 billion. They are included because, in just a few short years, they have surpassed Google in terms of online usage time. To add, the position that facebook is currently in is scary, to say the least. Plus, if you look 10-15 years in the future, soon almost everything an average person needs to do will be available online in your browser ... this what puts facebook in a scary position of power.

Also, if there are people using it for large majority of their time, then it obviously has some value to them. Since you dont need any apple, google, or msft products to use facebook, it would seem that if facebook is what you spent 90%+ of your computer time using, then you would happily give up the other 3 to keep facebook around.

I actually DO use Google Enterprise, mostly because of Google Apps and the enormous amount of email storage it gives us.

voted facebook. read thread. felt like moron.

ah ok, i was confused since you mentioned you used iCal and iChat for interoffice communication. If you are using google enterprise for gmail, why not use google calendar and gchat as well?

dont blame yourself ... my english sucks and the thread/poll title was poorly worded.

FYP

I swear to Holy Heaven, Google's going to have everything but Farmville in 5 years. The weird thing is I'm OK with that. They seem pretty cool, plus their cafeteria is better than 95% of the restaurants in Silicon Valley.

Facebook is a good addition to the poll because even the people who slam it (like me) are on it, along with a sixth of the World's population.

rumor has it they invested $100 million into Zygna (makers or Farmville)

I do Sync with my Google Calendar but I like having it on the local network as well. I suppose we could switch to the Google Calendar exclusively, but this is what we're used to. Same deal with Gchat, just no reason to use it when we have iChat and AIM.

I don't know if that's true. Wave and Buzz haven't exactly set the world on fire.

Let's see:

Apple: Pretty stuff, hardware works.

Microsoft: If I really had to I could use some clone of Excel (the one thing that microsoft offers that is best of breed). SharePoint might be the next best thing they have to offer, but normal people have no use for it.

Facebook: I don't use it enough to be able to comment. I do fine without it already.

Google: Allows me to find out anything about anything. Until something else becomes better, their search engine is pretty much the most important thing since fire.

I vote google.