tea-leaf reader when it comes down to predicting/analyzing Microsoft’s moves, but it strikes me that their recent announcements are doing two things: one, they’re catalyzing the “anti-MS” developer communities to the extent that maybe, just maybe, real alternatives will result, real interop up and down the business. Two, though, they’re very brashly going for lock-in like never before, seemingly trying to make the world in their own image.

Of course those two propositions are related. But it’s interesting that by (arguably) going further even than they were found guilty of last year, they may be helping to sow the seeds for that decision to be blown away – with the introduction of real competition. Or at least not to be the cause of complaint in the future.