Geoff Duncan

Using Microsoft Word to create Web content is the Information Age's equivalent to smoking:

• It's apparently addictive: once people get started on it, they can't seem to quit, and it's ruining the lives of a generation of information technology professionals.
• The results smell bad and cling to the user and anyone in the vicinity for hours.
• I don't want anyone doing it in my house or near me.
• Even being near it gives me a headache and puts me in a foul mood.
• Anyone doing so should be forced to go outside and huddle in doorways.
• In short, it's a filthy habit.

I figure the industry can go after Microsoft with a class action suit, on the grounds that they knowingly distributed software known to cause health problems, that cost thousands of businesses thousands of hours to clean up after, and used cartoon characters and heaps of advertising to promote this stuff on an unsuspecting public. Maybe we can get the states' attorney generals to join in, if the whole monopoly thing doesn't go anywhere.