Microsoft's Desperate Ploy

Check out this vicious attack ad by Microsoft.

I've never seen a corporate attack ad.  I've also never been so repulsed by an online video.  This move by Microsoft is creepy to me in a deep sort of way.  In political campaigns, desperate politicians often resort to whatever-works, nothing-to-lose attacks and ploys.  Microsoft is lashing out because it is trying to hold onto it's power position within a medium that is rapidly and inevitably changing.  In fact, Microsoft was one of the key players that shaped this new computing terrain.  Microsoft's anger reminds me a bit of the music industry's failure to control the move to digital music that they championed but ended up regretting.

Unlike a political race, Microsoft's enemy will not be defeated on election day.  An attack ad will do little to change the course of big, structural technological changes.  So what does it accomplish?