As many of you know I haven’t been the biggest Microsoft supporter 
Its been a really bumpy road using Microsoft products over the past 20 years. The consistently buggy software, and the security nightmare that is Windows/Internet Explorer is so flawed that I don’t think its possible to “fix” at this point without a fundamental change to the lowest levels of the OS.
About 4 years ago I switched all my desktop use to Mac OSX. I love it. And although I believe it is superior to Windows in almost every way (Especially the MACH Kernel) I didn’t really care what we used at Bluehost/Hostmonster/Fastdomain for our office/support computers.
Those days of ignorant bliss are now totally gone. We literally can no longer tolerate Windows in our corporate network. What you say? I know this sounds strange as corporate America is a stalwart Windows using market, but I’ll say it again. We can’t tolerate Windows anymore. It is simply too high a risk. It is UNSECURABLE.
Now I know right now that there are going to be lots of readers that write back saying, “If you know what you are doing then Windows is easy to secure. Only people that aren’t technical enough to do things right get infected.” Uh huh. There are so many zero day vulnerabilities with Windows that I simply can’t keep our network secure. In addition, because of the type of business we are in we are constantly the target of malicious activity directed at our network. We have to protect ourselves, and running Windows feels like bringing a plastic knife to gun fight when it comes to security.
So now the vast majority of employees at Bluehost/Hostmonster/Fastdomain run Linux in an LDAP environment (Support, Abuse, Admins, etc). We have several Macs throughout the office and will be adding many more in the near future. We do have some Windows machines (Quarantined from the rest of our network completely) that are used for testing, and a couple that are still used for accounting purposes, but even most of those are just virtual machines running Windows.
I’m not saying Linux, and Mac OSX aren’t susceptible to viruses or malware, but its so much less that its not even close. Its strange to me that most businesses just accept the fact that their machines will be infected with Malware and that they will just clean it off with the latest scan of their computer. Are you ok with your passwords, personal data, and financial information just flowing out to owners of various botnets? Are you fine to have an army of your office machines sending out spam in the background all day long while you wonder why your internet connection is slow? Clearly the answer for most businesses is yes. I guess after 20 years of Microsoft usage most people are just beaten into submission that computing has to be this way – but it doesn’t have to be. There are alternatives, and we are using them. I hope many of you reading today will consider some of the alternatives.
Matt Heaton
I love Microsoft too because most my job is Microsoft products
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Matt,
Your comment affirms me in my decision to move away from Bluehost to another company.
Thanks!
Hi Matt,
Amen to all of the above, Actually this year I ditch the windows and bought me a Mac Book Pro and I love it. when you turn it on it actually turns on
and don’t need to wait 10 mins for windows to fully load. The fact too that it’s less stress especially for me as a business owner I am a lot more happier now! 
It’s ashamed that Microsoft is a multi billion company and can’t produce a quality and stable products. Great post Matt and thank you for sharing.
Take care,
Albert
Hey Matt
I COMPLETELY agree with you! As a full time affiliate marketer, I am behind the computer A LOT.
I have been using Windows computers all my life and the last couple of years have smashed a few as well. Windows is crap! It’s slow, un-userfriendly, has constant issues, errors, freeze-ups, etc etc etc.
I have been done with Windows since Vista first came out! Simply opening up a program or an IE explorer webpage would take soooo long… I used to get so frustrated and angry behind my computer!
Last January I bought a new MacBook Pro, since my BRAND NEW $4000+ Dell XPS studio laptop completely crashed for the 2nd time within 8 months.
I have since then also bought an IMac and I am LOVING it! AS Albert says, it actually turns on within 20 seconds and turns off within 5 seconds. With Windows this would be 5-10 minutes!
Once you go Mac, you NEVER go back!
Cheers,
Ethan
These are the same arguments you see on Tech Republic vis-a-vis the relative merits of Mac OS X, the various flavors of Linux, and Windows. My experience has been with the Department of Defense. My customers will not use anything but Windows for their client machines. All web apps must be compatible with IE. These are the machines that are used in prosecuting the War on Terrorism, and defending our country. So the DoD is actively aiding the terrorist to bring down our country, or they know that security of Linux and Mac is no better than Windows, and that it is the security policies of users and organizations that determines the rate of infections. My personal experience with Linux versus Windows is that those who prefer working from the command line prefer Linux and those who prefer GUIs prefer windows. (Same as the division between users of Oracle and SQL Server.)
Matt I also gave up on microsoft a year or so ago switched all of my desktops to Mac’s and servers to Linux and all I can say is good riddance my digital life is soooo much better!
Steveyb
Great Post! For years I was concerned about switching from Microsoft to another Operating System because Microsoft was all I knew.
However, about a year ago, I downloaded a Ubuntu live CD and started playing around with it….. I realized that there really isn’t much of a learning curve in making the switch. So, I played around with several of the different distros of Linux until I found Fedora.
In my opinion, Linux in general and Fedora specifically rock!
There is nothing that you can do with Microsoft that you can’t do with Linux.
In reading some of the other comments, I noticed several that said they couldn’t afford to make the change to another Operating System. TRY LINUX!!!
Most distros are free and even 99% of the software is free. So, who can’t afford free?
I’ve got one OSx machine, and two running Win 7. They’re both very good OS’s, but overall my choice is Win7, mostly because, hard as I’ve tried, I can’t duplicate the range of software on the Mac that I rely on with Windows. I solve this on my Mac by running a virtual Windows machine under VMWare , and I spend more time on the Windows than the Mac side.