Bribes for the recalcitrants?

In a news article today, Microsoft is trying to bribe your IT guys at work to make you use Microsoft Live Search, as it is rather dead. For those who prefer another search engine (Say, maybe Google?!?! Though Yahoo is higher in rank than Microsoft), Microsoft sees such people as "recalcitrant'. Yeah. Recalcitrant, according to dictionary.com " Stubbornly resistant to and defiant of authority or restraint."

Yeah, Microsoft (or at least Mr Sohn who was speaking for Microsoft) thinks people who use a *ahem* superior product are defiant of authority (uhm, who?) or defiant to restraint. Makes you want to rush out and use Microsoft products, no?


In better news... EMI is seeing the light! You will soon be able to buy *high quality* *drm-FREE* music. And by high quality, think 256Kbps over the normal 128.


And Dell is soon to be selling Linux pre-installed. Hopefully for a lower price (no Microsoft tax).

The future is looking pretty good for consumers in charge, and a bit poor for Microsoft: Search is dead, DRM is dead, and tax is dead. Vista was still-born, and with all of it's DRM focused kernel and media player, and other performance/compatibility, etc issues... And the XBox is still selling at a loss (hardware), but with DRM dead, the point of locking down the hardware becomes rather, ... moot. Might Microsoft be on their last chapter in history? Time will tell...