From: Steve Ballmer <headhoncho@micÂrosoft.com>
To: Steve Vamos <downunder@microÂsoft.com>
Subject: Black Ops budget
Steve, what's going on with the journalist incentives program? We allocated you $5 millionâ€"and that's real money, not South Pacific Pesosâ€"to make sure the media over there gives more us positive coverage and does more negative stuff about Linux. I should be seeing a lot more Aussie journalists driving around in Ferraris and a lot less of this unbiased coverage. I mean, biasedâ€"against us. And they're presenting Linux as some sort of credible alternative. What gives? We need more shills!
I thought it was a pretty clever idea to plant that guy at that magazine who discredited himself and his pro-Linux coverage by stealing it from other people. How's that other guy you've got planted working out?
We've been kicking around a few ideas over here at the Mothership for implementation next year.
We're all really impressed with the lawyers the RIAA got to chase up all those file sharing creeps stealing their rightful property. We're definitely going to get the same guys to lean on some more egregious pirates. And it's not as though we need to spend time tracking them down like the recording industry guysâ€"whenever they use Windows Update it just sends us a list of all their pirate software, credit card numbers, embarrassing personal details, and which porn sites they've visited.
Can you Aussies find any good hired goons to back it up? I bet we could have got a lot more than $3000 out of that 12-year-old chick if some guys busted down the door and started breaking some kneecaps. But then again, if you guys down under don't get your journalists more compliant, we might get bad PR out of the whole deal.
Speaking of lawyers, the SCO lawsuit is going really well, though the big enterprise customers are not deserting Linux in the numbers we expected. I'm sure that'll change once we get SCO to sue end users for using their proprietary code. Same deal as with the BSA, of course, we'll leave the big guys alone and just bankrupt a few high-profile small businesses, that'll scare the pants off everyone.
We paid good money to get those guys at @stake to stick the boot into Mac OS as well. Good thing they fired that Dan Geer fella for calling us a hazard to the economy and national security. How dare he, when we were paying his salary?
Our fund to make sure Bush gets re-elected is progressing well. We've got to make sure we don't have a repeat of that awful antitrust business under the Clinton administration. We might have to get a few more right-wing judges appointed to the Supreme Court either way. Worst comes to worst, there are some assassinations we can arrange, but I'd better not discuss this on a Windows PCâ€"we want it to be secure, after all!
What do you guys need to keep the Liberals in power? Imagine if that Kate Lundy woman was in charge of IT over there: she'd probably make every school and government department use Linux and eat lentil burgers and mung beans all day.
We've also got some good ideas for Product Activation 2.0. Fair enough to make sure people don't install the same software on more than one computer, but we're missing out on huge amounts of revenue because we let more than one person use the computer and only pay one license fee! Looks like we've got that sorted out with Palladium, though. The computer won't work unless users authenticate with a fingerprint scan or DNA sample, and have their credit cards inserted in the smart card reader. Big days ahead, Steve, perhaps once that happens we'll talk about that raise you were asking for.
All hail the mighty M$.
what drugs were you on when you wrote that article?