Microsoft mini-investments (Score 1)

A little about Kaffe's history: It
started as an open source project, and to my
knowledge still is. While Sun was holding back
on making their code available to Linux porters
Kaffe people were hard at work making an
alternative available.

This religious MS bashing is not something I want
to contribute to, but the trend of MS investing
in startup companies is scary. As someone who's
in the second year of a startup, I can tell you
that the cash infusion can be very important to
the company. With a very small outlay of cash
MS is able to buy part of the startup, and
probably get a seat on the board. That means they
can control what the startup does.

I believe most innovation comes from startups. To
be able to control them is a huge amount of power.
Great strategy for MS: fund startups, get the
hungriest and hardest working on your side.