Steve Balmer, CEO Microsoft, one of the world’s richest men has, I gather, a list of troubles. Number one is the economy. Number two is open source.

Open source isn’t really Steve’s problem. Steve’s problem is that nobody trusts Microsoft anymore. Nobody.

A large constituency that doesn’t trust them anymore is developers. That’s bad. Microsoft’s OS monopoly provides a bridge between application developers and hardware developers. That’s what Operating Systems do. If both kinds of developers are scared to go over Mr. Balmer’s bridge – being a convicted abuser of your monopoly powers pretty much assures that – then they start looking for other ways over the bridge.

I bought a router recently for – after discounts, coupons, and rebates – five dollars. It’s got an operating system, a web browser, etc. etc. It doesn’t have any Microsoft components.

So I find it particularly amusing that Mr. Balmer would decide that the persona he want’s to adopt is that of Neo – the uber-developer of matrix, the wonderkun who is forced into battle with the system. How bizzare is that!?!

“Before Steve got on stage, there was a video showing Bill and Steve as Morpheus and Neo (respectively). Bill offered Steve two pills’one Big Blue on that required years of consulting, sub-par IT and a general lifetime of hell and the other a small, red one showing the truth. After the video, Steve rose up onto the stage from below the floor dressed in a black trench coat (a la Neo in the matrix).”