Micro$oft pulls a SCO move

Out of ideas, the Redmond Giant has resorted to stealing ideas from maligned SCO.

Let's listen in on a high-level strategy meeting on location in Redmond, WA, USA....

SteveB: "OK, we are getting creamed by all this damned high-quality open-source free software."

BillG: "Why don't we give another try a making at better product, Steve?"

SteveB: "Huh? What does that mean? Bill, you're so out of touch with my company...
So anyway, we're turning to you, our attorneys, to solve the problem for us. What have you got?"

AttorneyA: "Well, sir, we could try to bomb their offices with smelt-flavored pudding. That would slow them down from making and marketing the good software."

SteveB: "No, that won't work you idiot - they don't have offices."

AttorneyB: "How about sending them all free copies of Windows Vista and asking real nice to stop making us look bad?"

Tech VP: "That won't work either - nobody can afford the hardware to actually run Vista with any useful features enabled. Except our development team, that is."

SteveB: "C'mon numbskulls! If you don't come up with a strategy, you're all fired!"

AttorneyC: "Um, Mr. B, sir? I have an idea. What about we 'pull a SCO' on the world and launch a FUD campaign. We could use the empty threat of litigation for 'stealing' our technology. And the best part is, SCO showed that we don't even have to come up with real details - just the innuendo about infringement is enough to make the world doubt those evil good-software makers."

SteveB: "Hmm, that just might work. Yes,... I like it! Let's see now, how many 'violations' can we get away with?"

AttorneyA: "I don't think it really matters, sir. Make it in the hundreds."

Tech VP: "We can write software to generate a random number to use for the campaign. I'll get our offshore team working on that right away, sir!"

SteveB: "How long will it take, Mr. TechVP?"

TechVP: "Initial estimate is... 265 man-months for development, sir. As usual, testing will be allocated 0.25 monkey-days."

SteveB: "OK, well we'd better get some funding for that effort. I'll talk to SalesVP about forcing another enterprise-wide upgrade on Mega-Customer. No, better yet, I'll just have him use the auto-disabling feature of Vista to force all the grandmothers to buy the new Office version. Yeah, we don't want to piss-off Mega-Customer any more this year, and how gives a rat's behind about the consumers anyway...
OK, men - we have a plan - let's execute!"

AttorneyB: "Sir, didn't SCO fail miserably with this strategy and end up taking the throne from us as the most hated company in the tech world? "

SteveB: "Who's SCO? And besides, Nobody hates us..."

And thus the FUD campagin begins and the ever-so-predictable reactions...