The IT world has, just like any other community, some urban legends which are so old that they have become axioms and nobody is even trying to explain them anymore.

One of these legends says that Windows is a bad OS, another says that Apple is making the most beautiful OSs in the world. There is another which says that Google is the best search engine and of course there's the tale of the safest operating system: Linux.

The company that has the most to suffer is Microsoft and there are so many out there who hate Windows that someone who isn't familiar with computers might find it paradoxical that the most hated OS is present on 90% of the PCs.

Obviously, Microsoft is not saint, the company being responsible for a part the negative image. The instability of the Windows versions, the security problems, the adopting of a monopoly behavior, forcing Internet Explorer on users, are just a few of the arguments that can justify users' hate towards the ruthless corporation.

Linux is the exact opposite and there was a time when this operating system was divinized by users. Lately, Linux position has been occupied by Apple's Mac OS X. One journalist even said that after Mac OS X Tiger 10.4's launching, there wasn't a single review that didn't compare it to Windows XP or to the long-awaited Longhorn.

But this article is not about the eternal conflict between OSs. The conflict between Google and CNET.com (a communication problem that should concern only the two companies involved) has triggered a series of comparisons between Microsoft and Google.

One user said that by taking these measures against CNET, Google has lowered itself to Microsoft's level. Has Google become overnight an arrogant and unfriendly corporation and we have been too mesmerized by it too see or is CNET simply making Google feel, for the first time, the painful bite of the press?

Are Google's products less performant if its officials refuse to talk to CNET? Or, in Microsoft's case, will Windows work worse if Mac OS X 10.4 is better?

How important is the connection between the corporation's image and the products it promotes? Extremely important, a PR specialist would answer. Perhaps he's right, perhaps not. The fact that Steve Jobs is one of the most brilliant minds in the IT world won't ever make me to buy a Mac. And just because Steve Ballmer said that Google will disappear in five years, it doesn't mean that I rush will to the computer to uninstall Windows and become a Linux enthusiast.

After all, are we using the corporation's image or its products? I don't think there is a person that doesn't own a computer, PC or Mac, that doesn't have on its hard-disk a MP3, but I don't know how many of them would be able to say, without searching on Google, who invented the MP3.

After all, a corporation's policy, regardless of which company we are talking about: Microsoft, Google, Apple or any other name that comes to your mind, is its choice, as long as the quality of its products is good.

But many times we forget that, and we get used to hating Microsoft, (but keeping using Windows), to praise Apple as the most inventive company on Earth, or to saying that Google has become Microsoft just because it refuses to talk to CNET.

Every company in the world will react when one of its employees or products will be denigrated and I think they're entitled to that right. The way in which it does that is another problem, but it's obvious that if they choose wrong, they will pay for it, in the same way Microsoft is.
Like it or not, Microsoft is entitled to say that Windows is that best OS, Apple has all the right to praise iPod as the best MP3 player ever, and Google to say that it has the best searching algorithms.

I don't deny the fact that many times, the community's reaction will stop a company from successfully promoting its product, but let's not judge the companies after their PR policy, the products' quality being the decisive factor.

It's ok for Microsoft to be lambasted every time a new flaw is discovered in Windows or Apple to be criticized if iPod battery lasts only for 8 hours instead of 12, but I will never agree to the fact that we should choose another search engine just because Google is not taking to CNET anymore.

Softpedia News is conducting this week a poll on OSs. Are you an Apple, Windows or Linux fan? Defend your favorite operating system in the Softpedia News poll.