Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger Point of information: This is my third or fourth attempt to post here. So far none have showed up (as far as I know). I'm sure that most of my posts have been critical, but not to the point of being worth deleting, so I suspect what is at work here is a technical issue (or three). I know that my first post, which was a two-pager several months back got deleted, dropped, lost (pick one) as part of some server switch or malfunction that was later mentioned. It was a hum-dinger of a comment, but unfortunately I didn't keep a local copy and the muse had moved on once I found out about it. On one other occasion I thought a post had been accepted, but it never showed up. On the most recent occasion, upon hitting the submit button, I got a message that said I had not supplied an e-mail address (I hadn't) and everything I typed was gone. ("Back" didn't do it for some reason). So this time I'll supply a name (not my real name) and an e-mail address (not an important one) and the blog that I don't pay for the hits on (I don't care if people from here visit it or not), and if this post doesn't show up it will be the last time I try. I recommend that the posting form REALLY should specify which fields are required, and should also indicate what level of privacy a poster, who would just as soon remain anonymous, is likely to get. --- Now to reiterate the gist of my previous posts: I consider Scoble a cheerleader for Microsoft, and I don't particularly have a problem with that, other than the regular denials that that is what is going on. Nothing is more natural than to support the company that provides you with a living. In fact the frequent claims of relative objectivity, the ability to say whatever you want are just not believable, unless you are willing to forgo that paycheck, and even then, you have a point of view, and it's very hard to root out sources of bias. My own bias, at least partially, being that I was very much a committed fan of OS/2 (even when it was still a Microsoft project) and totally drank the MS Kool-aid hype about it professionally when the partnership was unceremoniously (from my point of view) ended in what retrospectively looks like gamesmanship by Bill Gates and Company. Finally, to the majority of people who "grew up" using Microsoft products, I just like to from time to time point out that Microsoft didn't invent the computer, or even the PC, not the operating system, or even the GUI form. They struggled, at first, against "the web", against TCP/IP. The "PC revolution" has claimed to be a throwing off of the shackles of mainframe computing, but in the end has re-invented a lot of concepts that were alive and well on the mainframes of the 70s (except the concepts were better documented back then). Microsoft doesn't deserve all the blame for the bad, nor certainly even most of the credit for the good in all of this and when it comes to innovation, it can't be said that Microsoft doesn't innovate, but I think it can be said that their innovation takes place on the margins of technology and not at its foundations. When the history of this time begins to solidify, MS will look a lot like the GM of technology: holding on to a good thing for themselves while technology in other parts of the world passed us (Americans) by. I can't help but wonder if that storehouse of brain-power in Redmond wouldn't be better off scattered to the wind where it could find better places to germinate. We can really never know the paths not taken.