The world should be very frightened…

Yeah, well… I still call it political posturing, and the only people who benefited from this (as is the case for many class actions) are the lawyers.

This I totally agree with you on. The action taken to penalise for abuses (never mind prevention) should have been entirely different. The gain of the lawyers is also something which characterises battles of intellectual monopolies (also known as patent).

Regarding Vista, I’ve seen heaps of your material on this. That’s why I still respect you, no matter the damage done by not acknowledging well-documented abuses of power and even technical sabotage.

About Ed Bought [sic] (or even his colleague George Ou), I’m just glad you’re not like them. They are like Microsoft’s PR frontline, attacking everything or anyone that questions the hype. As you’re probably aware by now, I consider hype/marketing/vapourware(promises) to subtle forms of lies. Just watch Jeff Jones doing gymnatics with statistics or Gartner and IDC producing Microsoft-funded studies without disclosure about the commissioner. Bill Gates is among their corporate investors by the way.

To say more on lies and spin, look at ‘trusted’ computing, ‘genuine’ ‘advantage’, ‘Vista-capable’ and ‘enablement’ features. That’s just Orwelian. Microsoft, for instance, also calls bribery “marketing help” (in the recent Nigeria incident) and “shilling” (paid-for astroturfing) it calls “evangelism”.

Microsoft will continue to have to earn its respect. Given its shady past, it might never earn any, but it buys plenty (in the form of brainwash through media and corporate acquisitions).

Lastly, in reference to Jim Zemlin’s remark about “respecting Microsoft”, one must remember that Microsoft is not Windows and Windows is not Microsoft.

I’d take less issue with your assertion if you also linked to my near hour-long rant on Vista… or any one of my Vista BSOD videos. My career is not alive because Microsoft does or does not support me.

http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/10/19/christmas-music-parody-blue-vista/

You paint me as an all-out apologist, but… my track record proves just the opposite. At least give folks access to my track record so they can decide for themselves.

Ask Ed Bott if he’d consider me a Windows or Microsoft apologist. I dare you.

I am by no means new to any of this and I suspect that you are missing the big picture. I can’t help losing respect for you after watching that video which mocks dumb|Iowa consumers (it makes the two synonymous). I thought you were far better than that. I know you are.

…Never mind a blind pardon to a company which runs governments behind the scenes, rewrites laws, and resorts to what’s known as ‘patent terrorism’ in the face of risk.

Obviously, never having seen my Vista reviews and recommendations… look beyond a single video, can we?