From what I've read on Channel 9 and the like, the reason for the new UI was scalability. Because of 2 decades of feature creep, the menus have just kept growing and growing. They tried many things to bring this under control, such as "personalized" menus, and menu remapping.
They're argument is that the ribbon is a truly scalable interface. Some of your other arguments about muscle memory, and support are also not very well thought out. On the surface they make sense, but they don't take into account that office has allowed you to rearrange toolbars, menus, and everything else for almost a decade. So the "click the picture with the double arrows on the left side" argument doesn't work.
Muscle memory might be a different story, but i've never actually seen anyone but a professional mac user who has trouble with muscle memory.
As for trying Office 2007, I guess there's supposed to be a public beta very soon.
Your comments appear to be based merely on your observation of the demo, and a lot of (largely incorrect) assumptions.
Undo, for example, is not gone. There are toolbar buttons in the "quickbar" by default next to the big round button you seem to dislike so much. It also doesn't "do away" with the need for undo, but it does significantly reduce it since most actions have live-previews that go away as soon as you move off it.
The "shy" toolbar doesn't appear when you're typing, but rather when you make selections, so your hand is already on the mouse.
There's actually a lot MORE text on the toolbar than there is today. A hell of a lot more, except when the visual image is what's important (such as with templates).
I'm also pretty confused by your comment that the toolbar is "littered with icon popup buttons where your choice causes an action to happen". Isn't that precisely what "buttons" are supposed to do? Isn't that the purpose of a toolbar?
Changes don't happen automatically. You have to select them (not obvious from the video, i'll admit). PREVIEW happens automatically, but is removed when you move off the button if you don't select it.
Word is already contextual, so your arguments that the button won't be findable if it's not selected is pretty silly. Notice how the actions in the Table menu in word 2003 aren't usable if a table isn't selected.
Also, keyboard shortcuts aren't removed, but rather follow the new style guidelines that they only appear when you press the alt key.
You really should try and get ahold of a copy to try out before jumping to all these conclusions. You seem to be looking for reasons criticize it, and are inventing them wherever a demo doesn't explicty show you something.
Firefox (and IE) pre-render their pages. That's one of the reasons Firefox's memory usage is so outrageous. Even if you disable it, the current page stays rendered in memory. It's just redrawing it. Switching from open tab to open tab does not show any significant change in memory or CPU usage. If it did it the way you suggest, tabs would be all but unusable.
I didn't say that at all. I'm just suggesting that maybe we should stop using emotionally charged words that aren't accurate just to instill a sence of moral superiority.
I didn't say Google controlled Firefox. The original poster was inferring that Google was unrelated to Firefox, and I was pointing out that Google and Firefox are closely linked via contribution of employees to the project.
You've got blinders a million miles wide if you think Google doesn't have significant influence on Firefox.
Right. My point was the term "convicted monopolist" is like "convicted rapist" You don't say someone is a convicted rapist if they were convicted of jaywalking.
Even if Microsoft hadn't settled the case, and even if you stretch things to claim that a judgement in a civil suit is a conviction, they wouldn't be a "convicted monopolist". They'd be a "Monopolist convicted of leveraging" or a "Convicted leverager".
It's funny, but so many of us complain loudly when someone calls us "pirates" or "thieves" for doing things like viewing DVD's we've bought, when at best it would be "copyright infringement", yet we're just as guilty of using emotionally charged words against those we disagree with ti exagerat and instill hatred.
Actually, Google does make Firefox. They contribute developers to it, including one of the lead developers, Ben Goodger. One has to imagine that Google via it's developers has some influence over Firefox.
Also, Google *IS* a monopoly in search engines. Something like 80% of all searches go through google.
Firefox isn't a monopoly, that's true. 1 out of 3 aint bad i guess.
This phrase has always bothered me. Apart from the fact that Microsoft wasn't "convicted" of being a monopolist (the DOJ went out of their way to say that Microsoft's monopoly wasn't illegel, The term "conviction" infers criminal proceedings but Microsoft's anti-trust trial was a civil action. Further, the judgement was overturned on appeal, and Microsoft settled with the DOJ, even negating the idea of a judgement.
So, not only would it appear to be inaccurate, but it just makes you look like an idiot to use it. Why embellish the truth when the truth is bad enough? Exagerating is only one step short of lying, and how does that make you any better than them? Aren't you supposed to be on the moral high ground? Your choice of words erode it down to a valley.
The way I see things, Community is both a godsend and a liability. Communities tend to create structures, and structures beget hierarchy. Once you have Hierarchy, then you have the issue that some members of the community are inherantly more "valuable" than others. They have more power, and they can opress others (and almost always do in some way or another).
Then there's the problem of resources. There are a finite number of people available to work on projects, and if communities keep popping up, you're going to run out of qualified people, or spread them so thin nothing gets done.
Unfortunatlye, that's easier said than done. For a variety of reasons. There are parts of the specs that some developers don't agree with, for instance. There are other parts that are so hard to implement that nobody has done it yet. Also, the standards themselves have been notorious for being vague and poorly worded. And what's not confusing is often missing. There's a lot of unspecified behavior.
Fact is, we need an entirely new set of standards that are complete and well written. Patching the existing ones hasn't been working.
You misremember. What you are likely thinking of is the testimony Real's CEO gave to a Senate subcommittee hearing called by Orin Hatch in which Robert Glaser claimed that when you install Windows Media Player, it co-opts media files to play on WMP instead of Real.
In other words, he was complaining that the default player was changed from Real to WMP when you install WMP. Duh. Real did the same thing at the time, as did Apple.
Nowadays, most programs ask you, and both WMP and REAL ask you which specific files you want to default to their players when you install them.
Most users are familiar with the placement of qwerty. They won't have to learn a new location or hunt and peck. Ideally, since it's software, you should be able to program it for anything.
"But, Preston, Gates & Ellis needed to show some lobbying fees and clients other than Microsoft and the BSA. Adding Abramoff did just that. Additionally, he had his own clients and did not have to work on any Microsoft or BSA business."
No. I did not ask you why you were trying to connect Abramoff and Microsoft. That much is obvious.
I asked you why you were trying to create an apparently ficticious connection between the BSA and Abramoff, insinuating that Microsoft funneled money through the BSA (and other proxies you fail to name) to Abramoff, when the BSA (and likely the other proxies you fail to name, or you would name them) was never apparently even one of Abramoff's clients. Yes, the BSA was one of Preston Gates Clients, but not Abramoff's.
My point was that you're trying to create the illusion of linkages that are not there. That does nobody any justice. There is a direct link from Microsoft to Abramoff, via Preston Gates. It serves no purpose to embellish those facts to make it appear worse than it is. And, frankly, without even the slightest evidence to support your claims, that's what you're doing.
Frankly, it casts doubt upon your entire argument when you make allegations that have no evidence to support them. Maybe it's true. Maybe you're right. But without any evidence, it would be luck, not fact, if you were.
If that's the case, why have any registered expenditures at all? That argument seems rather silly, and is at best hand waving. Is there any evidence that money was spent on Abramoff that wasn't registered? Come on, Bruce. Don't reduce yourself to "What if's".
I'm not talking about your speech. I'm talking about the comments you *JUST MADE* referencing capitaleye. Why the attempt to redirect and pretend you didn't? If there's any deception here, it's on your part for this bizarre "Look at the wookie" attempt.
Adelstein's report does mention the BSA, but only in regard to Preston Gates, which makes sense. There is no connection between the BSA and Abramoff that I can find, other than Abramoff had worked for Preston Gates at one time in the mid-90's. The BSA was never a client of Abramoff's, as far as I can tell. Do you have evidence otherwise? If not, why do you keep infering that Microsoft funneled money through the BSA to Abramoff?
I'm really shaking my head on this. Why are you trying to connect them? This is reminiscent of the administrations attempts to connect 9/11 and Iraq.
It appears that Preston Gates and Ellis employed Abramoff back in the mid-90's as a lobbyist. The consensus seems to believe that this was an effort to bring in other clients besides Microsoft to PG&E. This was probably a bad move on their part, but I don't see how that relates directly to Microsoft, since Bill Gates Sr doesn't appear to be a Microsoft Employee, and can certainly make his own business decisions without consulting with his son.
I agree that there are a lot of connections, but that's the way the rich and powerful are. They make connections. I'm certain that if you dig hard enough, you can connect almost anyone rich and powerful to almost anyone else rich and powerful.
My only beef here is that wrong-doing is being assumed, rather than proven and implied rather than described. As an open source advocate, you should be dealing with facts, not suppositions and allegations. Seriously, you're above this kind of conspiracy theory stuff.
"According to Senate records analyzed using CRP's new Lobbying Database, Abramoff represented at least 41 clients from 1998 through 2004. The largest, by far, was Microsoft, which employed the firm of Preston, Gates & Ellis as a lobbyist--a law firm where Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' father is a principal. During the time that Abramoff worked for Preston, Gates as a Microsoft lobbyist, political contributions associated with the software giant totaled more than $13.3 million, accounting for 60% of contributions from all of Abramoff's clients."
$13.3 Million and 60% of Abramoff's total contributions. Here's the "corrected" version:
"According to Senate records analyzed using CRP's new Lobbying Database, Abramoff represented at least 41 clients from 1998 through 2004. The largest, by far, was Microsoft, which employed the firm of Preston, Gates & Ellis as a lobbyist--a law firm where Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' father is a principal. During the time that Abramoff worked for Preston, Gates as a Microsoft lobbyist, political contributions associated with the software giant totaled nearly $400,000, accounting for 8% of contributions from all of Abramoff's clients."
From $13.3 Million to "nearly" $400,000. That's a big jump. And 8% rather than 60%.
They even admit, in their correction, that figuring all this out is difficulty and tricky, which would imply that even these numbers are probably suspect.
" "This was a complicated project from the start," said Sheila Krumholz, the Center's research director and acting executive director. "In designing our methodology we tried to account for all the complexities as well as shortcomings of the disclosure system. We didn't uniformly apply our conservative methodology throughout the research, and we should have. That resulted in overstatement, something we always try to avoid and regret in this instance. After being alerted to a single error, we looked more closely and realized we had to correct the data as quickly as possible." "
It's interesting that you put so much faith in a group that can't seem to get their act together.
"Editor's Note: The Center for Responsive Politics initially issued this report on March 30 but discovered that an oversight in its research overstated the political contributions that Jack Abramoff's clients made while he was their lobbyist. This revised report incorporates the corrected data, and the supporting tables have been revised as well. For more information, see CRP's notice of the revision or contact editor@capitaleye.org."
We're talking about money spent via abramoff here. Not how much Microsoft spends on lobbying in general. They spend a ton of lobbying in general, and that's a constitutionally guaranteed right.
I AM talking about the proxies. Or proxy in this case. There is nothing listed in the lobbying database for the BSA in regards to abramoff. As far as I know, the only link between between Microsoft and Abramoff is via Preston Gates & Ellis.
As you can see, in 2004, Microsoft spent almost $10,000,000 in lobbying, of which $0 went to Preston Gates.
In 2003 they spent almost $9 million, and again, $0 to Preston Gates.
You have to go back to 2002 to see that they spent $160,000 on Preston Gates, but it doesn't say who that money went to. Since Preston Gates spent $100,000 on the BSA that year, it seems unlikely that much, if any went to abramoff.
So, it seems that the majority of that money was spent years ago, and Microsoft was the 13th lowest paying customer out of 40.
Further, we don't know what Abramoff was employed to do. No wrongdoing has been suggested. This seems to be mere guilt by association.
A tiny percentage of Microsoft's overall lobbying budget was spent on Abramoff , less than 1% over 6 years, of which no wrongdoing is suggested at all. There is no evidence to suggest that what Microsoft employed Abramoff to do was illegal, and you can't just assume it was without being a kook.
You seem to be blowing this out of proportion, and jumping to a great number of conclusions based on limited evidence.
Do you have anything to suggest that Microsoft did anything illegal in regard to campaign financing or lobbying? Other than an indirect fuzzy association with Abramoff?
Slashdot Mirror
From what I've read on Channel 9 and the like, the reason for the new UI was scalability. Because of 2 decades of feature creep, the menus have just kept growing and growing. They tried many things to bring this under control, such as "personalized" menus, and menu remapping.
They're argument is that the ribbon is a truly scalable interface. Some of your other arguments about muscle memory, and support are also not very well thought out. On the surface they make sense, but they don't take into account that office has allowed you to rearrange toolbars, menus, and everything else for almost a decade. So the "click the picture with the double arrows on the left side" argument doesn't work.
Muscle memory might be a different story, but i've never actually seen anyone but a professional mac user who has trouble with muscle memory.
As for trying Office 2007, I guess there's supposed to be a public beta very soon.
Your comments appear to be based merely on your observation of the demo, and a lot of (largely incorrect) assumptions.
Undo, for example, is not gone. There are toolbar buttons in the "quickbar" by default next to the big round button you seem to dislike so much. It also doesn't "do away" with the need for undo, but it does significantly reduce it since most actions have live-previews that go away as soon as you move off it.
The "shy" toolbar doesn't appear when you're typing, but rather when you make selections, so your hand is already on the mouse.
There's actually a lot MORE text on the toolbar than there is today. A hell of a lot more, except when the visual image is what's important (such as with templates).
I'm also pretty confused by your comment that the toolbar is "littered with icon popup buttons where your choice causes an action to happen". Isn't that precisely what "buttons" are supposed to do? Isn't that the purpose of a toolbar?
Changes don't happen automatically. You have to select them (not obvious from the video, i'll admit). PREVIEW happens automatically, but is removed when you move off the button if you don't select it.
Word is already contextual, so your arguments that the button won't be findable if it's not selected is pretty silly. Notice how the actions in the Table menu in word 2003 aren't usable if a table isn't selected.
Also, keyboard shortcuts aren't removed, but rather follow the new style guidelines that they only appear when you press the alt key.
You really should try and get ahold of a copy to try out before jumping to all these conclusions. You seem to be looking for reasons criticize it, and are inventing them wherever a demo doesn't explicty show you something.
I think they're going to call it Bowling for Columbine.
Firefox (and IE) pre-render their pages. That's one of the reasons Firefox's memory usage is so outrageous. Even if you disable it, the current page stays rendered in memory. It's just redrawing it. Switching from open tab to open tab does not show any significant change in memory or CPU usage. If it did it the way you suggest, tabs would be all but unusable.
I didn't say that at all. I'm just suggesting that maybe we should stop using emotionally charged words that aren't accurate just to instill a sence of moral superiority.
I didn't say Google controlled Firefox. The original poster was inferring that Google was unrelated to Firefox, and I was pointing out that Google and Firefox are closely linked via contribution of employees to the project.
You've got blinders a million miles wide if you think Google doesn't have significant influence on Firefox.
Right. My point was the term "convicted monopolist" is like "convicted rapist" You don't say someone is a convicted rapist if they were convicted of jaywalking.
Even if Microsoft hadn't settled the case, and even if you stretch things to claim that a judgement in a civil suit is a conviction, they wouldn't be a "convicted monopolist". They'd be a "Monopolist convicted of leveraging" or a "Convicted leverager".
It's funny, but so many of us complain loudly when someone calls us "pirates" or "thieves" for doing things like viewing DVD's we've bought, when at best it would be "copyright infringement", yet we're just as guilty of using emotionally charged words against those we disagree with ti exagerat and instill hatred.
Now THAT is the Pot calling the kettle black.
Actually, Google does make Firefox. They contribute developers to it, including one of the lead developers, Ben Goodger. One has to imagine that Google via it's developers has some influence over Firefox.
Also, Google *IS* a monopoly in search engines. Something like 80% of all searches go through google.
Firefox isn't a monopoly, that's true. 1 out of 3 aint bad i guess.
This phrase has always bothered me. Apart from the fact that Microsoft wasn't "convicted" of being a monopolist (the DOJ went out of their way to say that Microsoft's monopoly wasn't illegel, The term "conviction" infers criminal proceedings but Microsoft's anti-trust trial was a civil action. Further, the judgement was overturned on appeal, and Microsoft settled with the DOJ, even negating the idea of a judgement.
So, not only would it appear to be inaccurate, but it just makes you look like an idiot to use it. Why embellish the truth when the truth is bad enough? Exagerating is only one step short of lying, and how does that make you any better than them? Aren't you supposed to be on the moral high ground? Your choice of words erode it down to a valley.
No, but one of the lead Mozilla developers, Ben Goodger, is a Google Employee.
The way I see things, Community is both a godsend and a liability. Communities tend to create structures, and structures beget hierarchy. Once you have Hierarchy, then you have the issue that some members of the community are inherantly more "valuable" than others. They have more power, and they can opress others (and almost always do in some way or another).
Then there's the problem of resources. There are a finite number of people available to work on projects, and if communities keep popping up, you're going to run out of qualified people, or spread them so thin nothing gets done.
Unfortunatlye, that's easier said than done. For a variety of reasons. There are parts of the specs that some developers don't agree with, for instance. There are other parts that are so hard to implement that nobody has done it yet. Also, the standards themselves have been notorious for being vague and poorly worded. And what's not confusing is often missing. There's a lot of unspecified behavior.
Fact is, we need an entirely new set of standards that are complete and well written. Patching the existing ones hasn't been working.
I prefer the way IE7 does this, the X only shows up on the currently active tab. You have to activate another tab for the X to appear.
How is that a solution? How many end users actually know the names of their applications, and more importantly, how many know what a bad one is?
"Application MicrosoftReallyImportantStuff Needs to access the internet. Give it access Now? Deny? I have no freakin idea, just go away?"
I'd bet you everything I have most users would choose 1 or 3 no matter what it was.
There is an option to turn it off, it's in the Advanced menu. And I agree with the OP, no, ClearType does not make text look bold.
You misremember. What you are likely thinking of is the testimony Real's CEO gave to a Senate subcommittee hearing called by Orin Hatch in which Robert Glaser claimed that when you install Windows Media Player, it co-opts media files to play on WMP instead of Real.
In other words, he was complaining that the default player was changed from Real to WMP when you install WMP. Duh. Real did the same thing at the time, as did Apple.
Nowadays, most programs ask you, and both WMP and REAL ask you which specific files you want to default to their players when you install them.
sounds like UPNP
Most users are familiar with the placement of qwerty. They won't have to learn a new location or hunt and peck. Ideally, since it's software, you should be able to program it for anything.
You mean where it says this?
"But, Preston, Gates & Ellis needed to show some lobbying fees and clients other than Microsoft and the BSA. Adding Abramoff did just that. Additionally, he had his own clients and did not have to work on any Microsoft or BSA business."
No. I did not ask you why you were trying to connect Abramoff and Microsoft. That much is obvious.
I asked you why you were trying to create an apparently ficticious connection between the BSA and Abramoff, insinuating that Microsoft funneled money through the BSA (and other proxies you fail to name) to Abramoff, when the BSA (and likely the other proxies you fail to name, or you would name them) was never apparently even one of Abramoff's clients. Yes, the BSA was one of Preston Gates Clients, but not Abramoff's.
My point was that you're trying to create the illusion of linkages that are not there. That does nobody any justice. There is a direct link from Microsoft to Abramoff, via Preston Gates. It serves no purpose to embellish those facts to make it appear worse than it is. And, frankly, without even the slightest evidence to support your claims, that's what you're doing.
Frankly, it casts doubt upon your entire argument when you make allegations that have no evidence to support them. Maybe it's true. Maybe you're right. But without any evidence, it would be luck, not fact, if you were.
If that's the case, why have any registered expenditures at all? That argument seems rather silly, and is at best hand waving. Is there any evidence that money was spent on Abramoff that wasn't registered? Come on, Bruce. Don't reduce yourself to "What if's".
I'm not talking about your speech. I'm talking about the comments you *JUST MADE* referencing capitaleye. Why the attempt to redirect and pretend you didn't? If there's any deception here, it's on your part for this bizarre "Look at the wookie" attempt.
Adelstein's report does mention the BSA, but only in regard to Preston Gates, which makes sense. There is no connection between the BSA and Abramoff that I can find, other than Abramoff had worked for Preston Gates at one time in the mid-90's. The BSA was never a client of Abramoff's, as far as I can tell. Do you have evidence otherwise? If not, why do you keep infering that Microsoft funneled money through the BSA to Abramoff?
I'm really shaking my head on this. Why are you trying to connect them? This is reminiscent of the administrations attempts to connect 9/11 and Iraq.
It appears that Preston Gates and Ellis employed Abramoff back in the mid-90's as a lobbyist. The consensus seems to believe that this was an effort to bring in other clients besides Microsoft to PG&E. This was probably a bad move on their part, but I don't see how that relates directly to Microsoft, since Bill Gates Sr doesn't appear to be a Microsoft Employee, and can certainly make his own business decisions without consulting with his son.
I agree that there are a lot of connections, but that's the way the rich and powerful are. They make connections. I'm certain that if you dig hard enough, you can connect almost anyone rich and powerful to almost anyone else rich and powerful.
My only beef here is that wrong-doing is being assumed, rather than proven and implied rather than described. As an open source advocate, you should be dealing with facts, not suppositions and allegations. Seriously, you're above this kind of conspiracy theory stuff.
Want to know how grossly they screwed up? Here's the original from google's cache:
w ww.capitaleye.org/inside.asp%3FID%3D210+&hl=en&gl= us&ct=clnk&cd=1
a moffRevision.4.7.asp
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:KlRc795K2QYJ:
It states:
"According to Senate records analyzed using CRP's new Lobbying Database, Abramoff represented at least 41 clients from 1998 through 2004. The largest, by far, was Microsoft, which employed the firm of Preston, Gates & Ellis as a lobbyist--a law firm where Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' father is a principal. During the time that Abramoff worked for Preston, Gates as a Microsoft lobbyist, political contributions associated with the software giant totaled more than $13.3 million, accounting for 60% of contributions from all of Abramoff's clients."
$13.3 Million and 60% of Abramoff's total contributions. Here's the "corrected" version:
http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=210
"According to Senate records analyzed using CRP's new Lobbying Database, Abramoff represented at least 41 clients from 1998 through 2004. The largest, by far, was Microsoft, which employed the firm of Preston, Gates & Ellis as a lobbyist--a law firm where Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' father is a principal. During the time that Abramoff worked for Preston, Gates as a Microsoft lobbyist, political contributions associated with the software giant totaled nearly $400,000, accounting for 8% of contributions from all of Abramoff's clients."
From $13.3 Million to "nearly" $400,000. That's a big jump. And 8% rather than 60%.
They even admit, in their correction, that figuring all this out is difficulty and tricky, which would imply that even these numbers are probably suspect.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/2006/Abr
" "This was a complicated project from the start," said Sheila Krumholz, the Center's research director and acting executive director. "In designing our methodology we tried to account for all the complexities as well as shortcomings of the disclosure system. We didn't uniformly apply our conservative methodology throughout the research, and we should have. That resulted in overstatement, something we always try to avoid and regret in this instance. After being alerted to a single error, we looked more closely and realized we had to correct the data as quickly as possible." "
It's interesting that you put so much faith in a group that can't seem to get their act together.
Also, it seems that the original report had grossly over-estimated the contributions as well.
http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=210
"Editor's Note: The Center for Responsive Politics initially issued this report on March 30 but discovered that an oversight in its research overstated the political contributions that Jack Abramoff's clients made while he was their lobbyist. This revised report incorporates the corrected data, and the supporting tables have been revised as well. For more information, see CRP's notice of the revision or contact editor@capitaleye.org."
We're talking about money spent via abramoff here. Not how much Microsoft spends on lobbying in general. They spend a ton of lobbying in general, and that's a constitutionally guaranteed right.
p ?year=2004&txtname=Microsoft+Corp
I AM talking about the proxies. Or proxy in this case. There is nothing listed in the lobbying database for the BSA in regards to abramoff. As far as I know, the only link between between Microsoft and Abramoff is via Preston Gates & Ellis.
http://www.capitaleye.org/abramoff_donor_full.asp
As you can see, Microsoft spent only $360,000 lobbying via Abramoff over 6 years, and only contributed about $400,000 to funds via abramoff.
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.as
As you can see, in 2004, Microsoft spent almost $10,000,000 in lobbying, of which $0 went to Preston Gates.
In 2003 they spent almost $9 million, and again, $0 to Preston Gates.
You have to go back to 2002 to see that they spent $160,000 on Preston Gates, but it doesn't say who that money went to. Since Preston Gates spent $100,000 on the BSA that year, it seems unlikely that much, if any went to abramoff.
So, it seems that the majority of that money was spent years ago, and Microsoft was the 13th lowest paying customer out of 40.
Further, we don't know what Abramoff was employed to do. No wrongdoing has been suggested. This seems to be mere guilt by association.
A tiny percentage of Microsoft's overall lobbying budget was spent on Abramoff , less than 1% over 6 years, of which no wrongdoing is suggested at all. There is no evidence to suggest that what Microsoft employed Abramoff to do was illegal, and you can't just assume it was without being a kook.
You seem to be blowing this out of proportion, and jumping to a great number of conclusions based on limited evidence.
Do you have anything to suggest that Microsoft did anything illegal in regard to campaign financing or lobbying? Other than an indirect fuzzy association with Abramoff?