Microsoft hits new ethical low point?

[sethg at ropine.com (Seth Gordon)]

When Allchin says "I worry if the government encourages open source",
read it in this light:

>From a Microsoft strategist's point of view, sales to individuals and
small businesses are just gravy.  Those customers reinforce the MS
monopoly, but they don't bring in enough profits to merit much
individual attention, most of them will put off upgrading for a
loooong time, and a substantial fraction of them consider software
piracy on a moral par with jaywalking.

Large organizations, where one IT manager orders a hundred Office 2000
licenses and a hundred secretaries are stuck using Office 2000, are
where Microsoft's bread is buttered.  Microsoft's marketing and
product development groups are very concerned about pleasing the folks
who make purchasing decisions at those organizations.

And those large organizations include government agencies.

So if employees at Government Division A are working on some
open-source product that will improve Linux's functionality in some
way, on the taxpayer's dime, while Government Division B is buying
heaps of Microsoft products, on the taxpayer's dime ... at some point,
thanks in part to the efforts of Government Division A, the purchasing
managers at Government Division B might decide to replace their
Microsoft products with competing open-source products.  I think this
would be a wonderful thing, but Allchin probably doesn't.

Also, the folks who say "doesn't Microsoft have enough money?" are
missing an important point: The people who invest money in Microsoft
don't want it to have a certain quantity of money, they want it to
*grow*, year after year.  If it's perceived that open-source
competition is putting a ceiling on Microsoft's market share or profit
margins, this will (further) drive down Microsoft's stock price, which
will make Microsoft less able to attract employees by giving them
stock options, which will force Microsoft to choose between paying
workers more cash (depressing their profit margin further) or settling
for a less talented work force, etc., etc.

--sethg
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