Microsoft is all about Partners, so it was poignant to be at the World Wide Partner conference when the EU fine was announced.
Partners, Partners, Partners; we love you guys – Steve Ballmer.
Partners have the access to every Team within Microsoft that competitors try to gain through lawsuits. I spent most of my time with the ISV Partner Team and if you have an application that you want to run on Windows Vista they will give you everything you need to make that happen.
There were Partners from every European country in Boston, but I met no one from the EU commission there. Perhaps a Partner solution can be found to interface with the competitors who also need to get their applications to run on Windows Vista. A Partner with access to Microsoft’s ISV Team could then partner with Real Networks, FireFox and Opera rather then have the bureaucrats in Brussels administrate code