Microsoft Becomes Sponsor of Open Source Initiative

Empowering individuals vs. exctracting data
[frostsnow] I think it's more because the fundamental purpose of computing has moved from empowering individuals [...] to extracting personal data for marketing purposes.

[roc] That's far less true for Microsoft than for Google and Facebook.

I think Microsoft is pivoting their buisness model right now. I've been watching the introduction of Office365 in a sizeable company, and they are pretty successful at reaching through the corporate layer to the captive individuals (Apple is even better at that tho).

It's just that their starting position makes them better at holding whole companies hostage (they've learnt the last 35 years how to talk to "decision makers"), but they have understood that it's their employees they ultimately want to control.

Google and Facebook started off the other end of the fishing pond.