How do you see Ms viewed by the World? good or bad?

[Bodhesatva]

I think Microsoft's bad reputation comes from being such a company-oriented organization.

A comparison would be something like Apple, which is a consumer-driven organization. They base all their goals around pleasing the public, and to a large extent, its effective; people find their products to be user friendly, stylish and efficient. On the other hand, Apple seems to be have nearly zero dealings with other companies; it seems Jobs almost discourages any partnerships with other companies, as everything has to be done the Apple way, or its not done at all.

Now look at Microsoft; their OS is notoriously buggy, and even now, their products are notably less consumer-friendly than Macs/iPhones are. Microsoft's products are generally less stable (I've found Macs last forever, but PCs are prone to all sorts of issues much more rapidly. In addition, there's the 360's serious hardware fail rates, and so forth), and thus I don't think it's unreasonable for the average consumer to feel like Microsoft isn't really looking out for their needs. But when it comes to other companies? Microsoft is second to none. They make partnerships all over the place, and seem to be very well liked, in general, in the larger corporate world. This is precisely how Windows rose to prominence: it isn't that it was the only option (towards Mr. Stick, we wouldn't still be using DOS now. LOTS of competing products are and were available, including Mac OS and Linux), but that Microsoft managed to partner with IBM and several other early PC manufacturers and get their Operating System put on all the PCs these people manufactured.

And then, we came to a point where even with consumer issues, people had to say, "well, it's not my favorite OS, but all my coworkers use it, all my friends use it, and if I want to interact with them, I'll need to use it, too." That is unquestionably why I continue to use a Windows PC today (although I may switch to Linux soon). We see the same sort of things with the Xbox360: horrible customer service issues culminating with the RROD. But you konw what? Third party companies still seem to be lining up to put their games on the 360, and even if some consumers don't like the hardware or Microsoft, the games lineup is very appealing and for many is too attractive to ignore.

To summarize:

Apple has a less-stellar reputation in the corporate world, but a stellar reputation with consumers.
Microsoft has a less-stellar reputation with consumers, but a stellar reputation in the corporate world.