Microsoft launches open source foundation (Linux-Watch)

To give people a clue of how big Microsoft is (and hence how many people there are making decisions in the company), Microsoft has over 30 _huge_ buildings within walking distance from my apartment (I live literally across the street from their main campus... I'm right in the lion's den). I can think of at least 5 other _huge_ buildings (50+ floor sky scrapers) in the downtown Bellevue area and other surrounding towns. The school I'm attending is having trouble finding a newer, larger building to move into because Microsoft literally owns and/or rents every possible piece of large real commercial real-estate it can get its hands on, and it's using all of buildings to max capacity.

There's no question that Ballmer is not a fan of competition, but he does not call the shots. His voice has more say than any other single person in the company, but the hundreds of thousands of Microsoft employees (including thousands of department heads and managers, and hundreds of VPs and program directors) more than outweigh Ballmer. In fact, one of the complaints I heard from an old Microsoft employee is that since Gates left there has been no real direction in Microsoft, because Ballmer doesn't have the charisma and support from the rest of the company the way Gates did. Ballmer can scream "Open Source is vile and must be destroyed!" all day long while many of his people right in the main campus run Linux on their laptops, flaunt their iPhones, and hack on Open Source projects for fun.

Microsoft has no unified vision anymore, has no true leadership, and it's not at all surprising to see Microsoft warmly embrace Open Source with true sincerity while simultaneously trying to crush it absolutely with real earnestness. Sometimes it might seem stupid, and other times it might seem like some big conspiracy, but in reality it's just a giant mega-corporation splitting into a countless factions due to a lack of true leadership.

At some point, Ballmer and Ozzie will be replaced. If a true leader takes over, Microsoft's many pieces might actually realign again. If so, Microsoft may go back to a true enemy of Free Software... or it may become a true friend. Neither is going to happen so long as company remains divided due to Ballmer's unpopularity with the company's staff and Ozzie's lack of clout with the development community.