One community's "Christmas miracle" is another community's environmental and tax burden, another private company's windfall at the expense of the public interest, another and apparently another generation's problem.

You wouldn't download a car...

I guess AT&T gets to keep the extra couple hundred million.

Since the watch will require an iPhone to function, thieves will no longer have to wonder! All they have to do is spot the $350 device on my wrist to know that there's a $600 device in my pocket.

...and the citizens are conveniently pretending they don't notice.

The later is the penalty. Slap on the wrist? You bet.

I know, right? Poor Microsoft, they're just trying to operate a giant multinational corporation in peace...they can't be expected to comply with ALL the laws, now can they? How were they to know they might be putting themselves in an awkward position straddling jurisdictions? I mean, give them a break!

That's simply not what's happening. Please RTFA.

If someone physically in Russia (or China, Iran, Pakistan, Myanmar or North Korea) allegedly violates the laws of their country, and the evidence of such resides on a server in the U.S., then no, I have no problem with, nor control over, said country imposing punishment on that person if they refuse to produce this evidence when lawfully required. My opinion on the laws of another state are irrelevant in this matter, if I am to respect their sovereignty. And if I don't respect their sovereignty, this issue is of least concern.

This was previously discussed ad nauseam; Microsoft has simply lost another appeal. To reiterate:

Source: PCworld

To move data across jurisdictions is trivial. If it were made this easy to stymie law enforcement whenever the evidence in question is electronic data, we'd end up with much bigger problems. They should at least have to go through the trouble of setting up a shell company...

The one valid concern I've seen raised regarding this issue (which I have not seen raised in this specific case) is when such a warrant would be at odds with data privacy laws in the other jurisdiction; this is a lose-lose situation for the party on whom the warrant is served. I'd feel bad for them, but it was their choice to operate across jurisdictions in the firs place, and their responsibility to be in compliance with all parties; if that's not possible, and they choose to operate anyway, I don't pity them at all.

Will my USB Pet Rock be affected?

Don't worry, my friend, everything is alright:

SecuROM Frequently Asked Questions

There's absolutely nothing to worry about here; move along, now.

Sometimes, "what's best for Microsoft" may not be so immediately obvious. I have no doubt that someone far more skilled and knowledgeable than I ran the numbers and decided that their plans to "right-size our manufacturing operations to align to the new strategy and take advantage of integration opportunities" makes good business and financial sense in the near future. Long term is quite a bit more difficult to predict with any certainty (which makes such sweeping actions inherently risky). Even harder to forecast (or even quantify) are the intangibles, such as: the effect upon the corporate image held by employees, former employees, customers and potential customers, communities, governments, regulators, competitors, and the impact of that effect; the direct and indirect impact on the market itself, both present and future; and of course, the risks of untended consequences.

Perhaps this wasn't covered in business 101? I wouldn't know.

And why would they? The real decision-makers in such large companies (and to an even greater extent, multinationals) rarely set foot in the communities they draw resources from, and frequently don't even understand their markets—this is why they spend so much on consultants and focus groups in an effort to do so. Said decision-makers may have, by virtue of the wealth and power synonymous with such a position, vastly different ideas (versus their labor force, markets, and those impacted indirectly by their decisions) of what it means to invest in their community, and of the value of doing so. Furthermore, in the case of publicly held companies, their hands may be tied by their investors, who are even further abstracted from every aspect of the company; except of course, for the financials.

The same applies whether you define community as a town, county, state, region, or country, to a greater extent for smaller groups, and to a degree correlating with the amount of influence the company has within (or over) the community.

"Nation's best interest" is a very subjective thing. Go ahead, ask 10 people on the street, you'll get 12 different answers.