I spew drivel about Microsoft in predicting that when Nadella said "we're going to create jobs and focus on the mobile market", he actually meant "we're going the fire an obscene amount of people because we want them to pay for our bad management and we're going to fire the most people in the mobile market departments.", which has turned out 100% true, and thus my statement that Microsoft means exactly the opposite of what they're saying is absolutely proven true once again...
This has been going on forever:
- "We want to innovate PC operating systems" v. "We're selling the same old 80's crap we virtually stole from IBM over and over again for an ever higher price and the only thing we change is the colour of the desktop, but we've done a great deal of R&D into how to make stuff incompatible so you have to buy ever more new stuff". Before that they bought MS-DOS from a small company in Seattle for a miserable 25000 USD...
- "MS-Windows does not contain any NSA back door" (quote from MS lawyer before European Council), v. the proven NSA-keys in the software that are at least there since 1998, for which Microsoft says it has no explanation, and the statements of ex-NSA agents before the European Council that Google and Microsoft, with Microsoft in the first place, are close collaborators to the NSA...
- etc etc etc etc etc.... the list of their lies is endless. Basically they always mean the exact opposite of what they're saying.
The conclusion is simple: in my opinion, Microsoft sells products for losers that can't handle the truth, and guess what, Microsoft thrives on it and there are actually plenty of people ignorant enough to defend them ROFL...
With your assumption there's no way for the majority to gain anything, and we are doomed. If all companies end up like comcast no matter what we have nothing to believe in. But that's wrong. Some have moral. All companies want to capitalize on their users, true, but some capitalize on them with real, and healthy, progress and actual benefits for us.
Look at Elon Musk, he drove his company in the ground 2008 because of his conviction to "save the world". His words, not mine. He got lucky and on his last test flight with SpaceX he succeeded for the first time and got funding from NASA. Now he's developing technologies for sustainable cities (with solar city), electrical cars (that can charge our homes) and affordable space exploration. Bill Gates donates most of his money to charity, which is good. However, Google founder Larry Page understands the situation and would have donated to Elon Musk if he died. That says alot and there's a difference there. We have Microsoft and other companies companies with self-interest on one hand, and we have Google and Musk among others on the other.
So first thing first; you should cheer on someone who has the power to make change villingly. Companies rule the world and to "cheer or ally" none is like voting blank.
You are claiming that Microsoft is inexperienced with "the lobbyist-labyrinth", I believe they aren't.
However, I don't understand exactly what you're implying. Please explain further. Is there a restriction to lobbyists, corporations or otherwise that make it harder to push the open source/free alternatives? Sorry if I misread your statement. I have tried to reformulate that question several times without success.
However, I still think the bastards won't have chance now. They lost some large German states to Linux, and now the UK adpopts ODF: http://goo.gl/m32jBt
A big middle finger to that corporate consortium. Cheers! :)