In giving the computer makers a tiny bit more flexibility, Microsoft is finally making a change it should have made long ago. In other words, given the changes that have occurred in the past few years, it’s a meaningless gesture.
More in my special Thursday column.
UPDATE:
I think I understand the timing of the announcement. Microsoft also announced yesterday that its quarterly revenues will be, as usual, stronger than what it had been feeding to all those compliant analysts on Wall Street.
Why is this important? Here is a company that has a monopoly, which it has abused for years. And here, in the middle of the worst high-tech slowdown in anyone’s memory, Microsoft gets more and more profitable.
Of course, the company wants investors to know about this, to move up the stock price. And given the market’s reaction today, Wall Street was properly impressed.
But as it heads back into court, and as it tries to manipulate the court of public opinion, Microsoft surely doesn’t want too much public attention on its vast power — financial and otherwise. The company wants to keep pretending, against all logic, that it’s an underdog.
See also:
to the patriotic spirit of the consumer and courts, implying that a failure
to “innovate” (see “Innovation”) threatens software development, competition,
world order, the national economy, and may prevent Bill from building the
addition to his mansion next year.