Summary: An accumulation of observations about how Microsoft treats the industry and how peripheral agents help it accomplish goals

EARLIER today we wrote about Microsoft's anti-counterfeiting chief quitting the company. It happens just as the 'Microsoft police' [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] goes hard on businesses that use proprietary software. From eWEEK Europe:

Software Auditors Crack Down As Recession Bites

[...]

Software auditors risk becoming "revenue-generating" traffic cops as the recession put pressure on vendors to collect every penny of revenue

Now, check out this new press release which shows Directions on Microsoft acting as more than an analyst firm focused on Microsoft. They are just making money from the Microsoft ecosystem by assisting with Microsoft licensing, for example, offering remedies to the above "illness". Essentially, they are like Microsoft salespeople, but some have a blog at CNET. What a farce, as if CNET didn't have enough Microsoft blogs already...

The funny thing is that this press release (with Paul DeGroot at the bottom) says: "Directions on Microsoft is an INDEPENDENT analyst firm formed in 1992 to focus exclusively on Microsoft." Yes, they even capitalised "INDEPENDENT". Maybe it's "INDEPENDENT" in the Peter O'Kelly sense [1, 2]. Eventually he worked directly for Microsoft.

“Essentially, they are like Microsoft salespeople, but some have a blog at CNET.”Then there's Microsoft Enderle, the "INDEPENDENT" analyst who has just come out with a 3-part series boosting Microsoft. He is routinely attacking Microsoft's competition and even prominent critics like Groklaw. Private E-mails revealed that he's working with Microsoft's PR department, Waggener Edstrom (examples in [1, 2]). There's no shame to these people.

About a week ago we wrote about Centrify and mentioned Likewise; both of these companies engage in Microsoft methodologies (they are run by former Microsoft employees, at least in part) and do protocol promotion with software patents, even on UNIX/Linux (unlike Samba, which is exempted from these unacceptable terms). Likewise is preparing for change. It's to do with perception and public engagement.

Speaking of which, Microsoft has just sparked some more cheap PR efforts (there's a $36,000 'carrot' involved) and it offers free lunch to developers (well, breakfast actually):

It will be attended by some of Silicon Valley's most well known companies, including Yahoo, Microsoft, Mozilla, Yelp, and plenty more. Microsoft is even sponsoring breakfast.

Microsoft also organised/sponsored an anti-Google ("Screw Google") luncheon. Microsoft pays for -- not earns -- supporters. ⬆