The thrill and agony of being a Microsoft partner

Joe Wilcox has a great post on something I have written on a few times.  For an ISV, Microsoft can be like a Siren: they sing a great tune, but sometimes they send you crashing into the rocks.  While they haven’t made direct moves into our space (yet?) they have made it harder to do business with them by making the platform assume more of the capabilities that partners used to provide.  I don’t think that Microsoft is neccesarily evil for doing this, it’s really the only way they can continue to grow their business.  However, I do think that they will alienate partners or at least cause them to put in place hedge strategies with other platforms.  I wonder how many partners are looking at alternatives because of the broohaha around McAffee and Symantec?
Microsoft Monitor: It’s an Old Story, and <i>Not</i> a Good One