Innovation on Linux and UNIX

Quoting:§ We will always interoperate with non-Windows systems on both the front- and back-end. Our search solutions will crawl and index content stored on Windows, Linux, and UNIX systems, and our UI controls will work with UI frameworks running on any operating system.

Quoting:§ We’re introducing a Customer Upgrade Program that will help customers evaluate our hosted solutions and/or a Windows-based deployment. The program will help customers assess level of effort, plan for the project, and implement the upgrade. (Customers should contact their account representative for more details.)

Here it goes yet again, from Microsoft's Olstad and others:

We are the Borg.

Prepare to be Interoperated Upon.

Resistance is Futile (any attempts to get effective Customer Support for non-MS platforms!)

I swear if you ask these persons a question as simple as 'what time is it', you'll still get a raft of lengthy Doublespeak.

It's pretty profitable. As long as the customers are dumb enough to play along, why should it change? Heck, I'd do it too, if I could make a few gazillion dollars.

> Heck, I'd do it too, if I could make a few gazillion dollars.

Power corrupts.

> Power corrupts.

Absolutely. :)

... and knowledge is power.

What is this "innovation" that the Microsoftie speaks of?

What does "deliberately withdrawing a service or production" have to do with "innovation" as it is commonly understood, i.e. the creation of a new good or service, or the re-purposing of an existing good or service?

Is this a particularly egregious example of corporate-speak?

> What is this "innovation" that the Microsoftie speaks of?

People have been wondering that for decades.

> Is this a particularly egregious example of corporate-speak?

Not particularly, no.

And now from Dana Blankenhorn's concurrent ZDNet piece 'How Microsoft uses open source to fight open source' linked to at LXer via http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/131782

Quoting:To Microsoft open source is not an end in itself. It is a marketing tool. It is a way to gain lock-in with important customer sets.

Indeed, not only lock-in for important customer sets, but also lock-in for customers proven to be consistently "dumb enough to play along".

@vainr:

That's Microsoft's second most important customer set, right after big corporations that will plunk down big cash.

Wait, now that I think about it, big corporations constitute a subset of "dumb enough to play along."