Kent

Jay has an interesting post on Mike Gunderloy. I've been incredibly interested in Mike's migration out of Microspace as well since he announced. Partly because I'm a big fan of his[1] and partly as I've considered the possibility of making the same migration. It seems Mike felt the need to migrate out because he didn't like a few of the decisions Microsoft has made on Office and Vista. Jay counters with a few 'iffy' things Google has done, as if that makes it better. I'll go the one step further and add that I don't think you'd find any corporation that's existed more than a few years that isn't guilty of doing things that are 'iffy'.

As for Google, I have repeatedly stated (only slightly jokingly) that it's a front for the NSA. If they are or not, they have scary-huge amounts of data on everyone and everything. Will they use it for evil? Yup. Am I worried about them? Yup. Will I switch off of using them for my email, calendar, or search? Not until there is another alternative -- that isn't Microsoft. As much as they (Google) worries me, and as much as I know they have the PII [2] religion at Microsoft, I gnash my teeth everytime I hit a Microsoft page these days, and a MSN/Live/whatever site causes double the reaction. I find them ugly, heavy and intrusive.

So, while I admire Mike for his leap of faith (and know he'll be fine), I'm not yet willing to jump. I agree with Jay's feelings that all corporations do wrong and you have to pick the battles you care about. I like developing in Microspace, and see myself continuing for a while, maybe until they switch off of .NET, or ScottGu retires/stops caring so much.

Now back to some [Oh ma gawd] actual coding that I was working on (such a rarity these days).

[1] Back when Access was putting food on my plates, Mike's writing saved the day many times. Also, his ability to iron man through all those newsletters he does is an inspiration to me every day I feel like quiting my own daily task.
[2] Personally identifiable information. It means most Microsoft sites limit the amount of information they get to identify you, usually just an anonymous ID. It's also why most Microsoft sites that ask for more are actually hosted off of Microsoft servers (usually Smooth Fusion or Telligent)