In a world without Microsoft…

Earlier this week on searchCIO-Midmarket.com I wrote about IBM’s pitch (with partners) for a “Microsoft-free desktop.”

It seems a little far-fetched. Then again, we got an email yesterday from an IT director outlining how he very much is trying this, albeit not necessarily using IBM.

All said, it got us to thinking here: What if Microsoft never existed? You know, like in It’s A Wonderful Life. How would the world be different?

A few ideas (thank you to Colin Steele at SearchITChannel.com for pitching in here):

Steve Ballmer would be a used-car salesman.

Justin Long wouldn’t be famous (thank God).

Redmond, Wash., would be best known as the bicycle capital of the Northwest.

South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut would be missing its best joke. We won’t link to it here (it’s pretty violent, for a cartoon), but it has to do with Windows and there’s this cool little video site called YouTube.…

Antitrust would still be most synonymous with Standard Oil.

Failures (who think they are actually geniuses) wouldn’t say things like “Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard.”

We wouldn’t have Xbox. (Wait. So what?)

No lame “hot male” jokes.

Oh, who am I kidding? We’d probably all be out of a job.