MSFT discussing disabling products? Well, duhh!
I'd be alarmed if anyone thought we were all stupid enough to believe that intelligent managers at MSFT didn't talk about disabling or at least making the user's experience with competitor's products, shall we say, "less convenient."
Saying they never discussed it would be akin to saying that no one at the White House knew Bill and Monica were playing nasty in the oval office.
The real issue is how far MSFT went in applying what I call the "mined harbor" approach as a policy or even a real strategy. Since complex software is so much of an art form instead of science, it is all too easy to simply say there are technical nuances that may make it problematic to solve all "vendor's" problems through the OS. So, if the problem just happens to occur with some other vendor's package, it's up to the vendor, not MSFT, to provide the fix.
No matter how distasteful to those in the software app' industry, this is, IMO, an impenetrable defense, and no amount of "smoking gun" documentation about discussing it is meaningful in the sense of prosecuting MSFT.
Yes, I'd venture to say they discussed it. I'd even venture to say there is an undocumentable but subtle policy of "non-cooperation" with competitors.
Well, at the risk of being redundant - "DUHH."
Just food for thought.
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