Are you as sick as I am about all of these computer companies who insist on convincing or coercing every person in this country to use "The Cloud"? You can’t seem to buy software of any kind without that gentle shove by the company to convince you to place all of your personal writings, business writings, financials or anything else you can a think of on their version of "The Cloud".

Is anyone on this earth unaware of the risks we take just by being on the Internet. Viruses appear without notice almost every day or so we’re told by McAfee.  Hackers are constantly breaking into those so-called secure sites and making the lives of us poor morons miserable. They’re costing us a lot of money each year to try and protect ourselves and it seems no matter what big companies do, they can’t protect themselves and our most private information.

Three times in the last few years I’ve been forced to change my credit and debit cards because someone was buying music or other things with my card numbers in Paris, France, Cleveland, Ohio and Montreal, Canada.  I have those expert security specialists at Home Depot, Hannaford Foods, and Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield for making my information available to every hacker and thief who has a computer. I’m easily paying more than $200.00 a year for virus protection of my home computers and even a monthly charge for my freaking telephone.    Do you see where I’m going with this?

Yesterday I was taken by surprise when Microsoft notified me via Facebook that they were making the MS Word program available for free to users of the IPad. I was thrilled because I’ve been loyal to Microsoft for decades.  It’s only within the last year or so that I’m becoming more and more disappointed with them.  After the X-Box One fiasco that make the device incompatible with a couple of decades of game software I’d already purchased, that was Strike One.  Strike Two was my purchase of a MS Surface tablet.  It crashed within a week of the purchase and with no help from their Tech Support took me a month to figure out how to reset it.  Of course I lost all of my information on it as well.

Strike Three is this App which might be free but has a lot of strings attached. If you create any documents of any kind you’re forced to save them on the MS “Cloud” called “OneDrive”. There is no option that will allow you to save them just to your tablet.   In my opinion it’s those kind of strong-arm tactics that could get me to walk away from MS entirely.  Oh and by the way, you can take your Office 365 program and stick it where the sun don’t shine.

Everyone knows and worries about Google becoming too intrusive  when they save every piece of information about us they can get.  I understand now they have access to and save information on virtually every website we visit on the web. People are concerned about Muslim terrorists but compared with Google they’re inconsequential.

I took steps this year to install my own “Cloud” in my home with no available access from the net.  All of my information and backups are now stored safely out of reach of the online thieves and hackers and controlled only by me. 

So here’s my final thought  for Microsoft.  It’s time to get your collective heads out of your collective asses and get back to being the company we’ve all come to know and trust over the years. Bring Bill Gates back if you must and maybe he can stop you from following down that road right behind Google. 

Since you’ve used up your three strikes, I just deleted your free Word App from my IPad.  I never thought I’d see the day when Microsoft wasn’t leading the technology revolution by taking it in new and exciting directions instead of following along behind others like a lap dog.