Dear Microsoft

by Charles Miller on April 7, 2004

Hi there Bill, Steve and the guys. I hope you're having a nice day. I don't know how it really is, but I have this mental image of the upper echelons of Microsoft living in a long wooden hall, quaffing mead, and singing loud songs about burning villages and making off in longboats with the gold and women.

Anyway, it's nice to hear you've finally sorted things out with Sun. It was just lovely to see how friendly you and Scott are now. It must be difficult finding friends when you're the biggest software company in the world: you get yourself a bit of a reputation, and suddenly everyone is on the defensive and you can't get to know anyone any more.

So it's nice to see you've found a new friend, but I think you're still probably a bit lonely, so I thought I'd make an offer.

It only took one and a half billion dollars to turn Scott around. I just thought I'd let you know that I want to be your friend too, and it won't cost you nearly as much! One million US dollars, and I'm your guy. It's a bargain! A million dollars? Bill probably loses that much behind the couch in your average week.

For that, I'll happily tell the world how excited I am to be in partnership with you, and how much I respect you as a company. I'll come to your barbecues and laugh at the funny slogan on your apron, even if nobody else does. I'll tell Steve Ballmer that he really isn't as bad a dancer as everyone says he is.

Throw in a copy of Visual Studio, and I'll even tell everyone how cool .NET is!

Well, so long as I can get it running on the big-ass G5 I'd buy with the money.

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