Bill Gates and IV chief have very deep relationship. There have been reports of Gates attending brainstorming sessions at IV office to generate patentable ideas. I honestly think IV has managed to sold Gates on the some beautiful vision. Or perhaps its just creating FUD that if you don't join in our patent cartel, others will get you. There are also reports that many IV employees have deeper access at Microsoft. For example, IV employees are regularly invited to otherwise employee-only event that Microsoft Research organizes every year. This is unprecedented level of access considering none public information there. Besides Microsoft is currently on defence and it can use all ammo that IV offers for small "membership" fee of their patent cartel.

Their recent movies really boosted how I felt about them.

After several years (after Vista) of staying far away, I decided to give them a try once more with their Windows 7 phone. Totally abandoned and betrayed on that.

When you write something like this, please, make it clear you are being sarcastic at the start of the paragraph. I almost spilled my coffee over the keyboard.

Large companies are made of many people who sometimes have different goals and ideals.

That's an excuse?

I think so, yes. It's hard to turn around such a huge ship.