Top 3:
Apple, for creating HyperCard and Clarisworks. It is also easy to respect a company that ships products like Graphing Calculator and Grapher with their operating system. Hey, playing with a cool calculator a heck of a lot deeper than playing solitaire.
Microsoft, let's face it: Microsoft's business model allowed the personal computer industry to flourish in an era when companies like Apple, Atari, and Commodore were selfishly trying to control the platform. They also made some pretty decent products (Word 5.x for the Mac and Windows NT/2k/XP among them).
FLOSS, for creating a universal banner that many bickering Unix vendors were unified under. This allowed Unix to continue on as the only major competing user interface metaphor to the WIMP model adopted by Apple and Microsoft. They also provided a social model where hobbiests could continue to be movers and shakers in the computer industry.
Bottom 3:
Apple, for being the roller-coaster of the computer industry. Their major products have used four CPU architectures and five operating systems. They, like Commodore, also managed to blow an (approximately) decade long lead due to horrid project mis-management.
Microsoft, for producing some of the least imaginative, most bloated, and dangerously buggy software from a major software development house. Just compare many Microsoft products to their contemporaries to see what I mean. Their business tactics were also savage, resulting in the premature death of many interesting competing products.
FLOSS, for believing that that the seat of power was within their reach and all but abandoning the Unix philosophy to try and achieve that crowning glory. Also for diminishing the status of major Unix vendors -- which will end up weakening Unix's role on servers and super-computers in the long term.
Apple, for creating HyperCard and Clarisworks. It is also easy to respect a company that ships products like Graphing Calculator and Grapher with their operating system. Hey, playing with a cool calculator a heck of a lot deeper than playing solitaire.
Microsoft, let's face it: Microsoft's business model allowed the personal computer industry to flourish in an era when companies like Apple, Atari, and Commodore were selfishly trying to control the platform. They also made some pretty decent products (Word 5.x for the Mac and Windows NT/2k/XP among them).
FLOSS, for creating a universal banner that many bickering Unix vendors were unified under. This allowed Unix to continue on as the only major competing user interface metaphor to the WIMP model adopted by Apple and Microsoft. They also provided a social model where hobbiests could continue to be movers and shakers in the computer industry.
Bottom 3:
Apple, for being the roller-coaster of the computer industry. Their major products have used four CPU architectures and five operating systems. They, like Commodore, also managed to blow an (approximately) decade long lead due to horrid project mis-management.
Microsoft, for producing some of the least imaginative, most bloated, and dangerously buggy software from a major software development house. Just compare many Microsoft products to their contemporaries to see what I mean. Their business tactics were also savage, resulting in the premature death of many interesting competing products.
FLOSS, for believing that that the seat of power was within their reach and all but abandoning the Unix philosophy to try and achieve that crowning glory. Also for diminishing the status of major Unix vendors -- which will end up weakening Unix's role on servers and super-computers in the long term.