If any company can take bad PR and make it worse, it's Microsoft
Fresh off its recent slap from the European Union's second-highest court, The Wall Street Journal has been subject to anti-Google
Secret's out now, and my guess is the public won't like it. After all, as far as most Web consumers are concerned, Google doesn't cost them a penny, and it provides them with nifty "innovations," even if most of those -- like Google Earth -- were innovated by others. Microsoft, on the other hand, is the creator of the OS and productivity software that makes them scream obscenities every day.
This kind of anonymous cloak-and-dagger is nothing new in the computer industry. Everyone, including "not evil" Google, does it. But execs at Microsoft don't seem to have gotten the memo: They'll be strung up for behavior that is just fine from others. Better to take the highest road possible and be transparent about it from the get-go.