. . the plan, the money and the tools - but one thing they're increasingly running up against is the issue of trust. Hailstorm / My Services looked like it'd be a steamroller, but it hit the trust issue like a [link|http://www.aaxnet.com/news/M020411.html|brick wall].

A few years ago my small business clients looked quite ascance at my perceived "anti-Microsoft" attitude. Today, I'd be hard pressed to point to any clients that don't think Bill Gates is personally out to screw them. A combination of court news, a rather rough handling of licensing issues, steadily increasing costs and continuous virus problems is taking it's toll.

On the other hand, most are still in denial of just how deep that screwing is going to be, so very few are yet willing to consider moving off the Windows platform. The image problem may, however, be enough to derail any wholesale migration to Microsoft Great Plains Small Business Manager.

Pulling in the other direction, Microsoft has a crew of rather skilled and persistent telemarketers pushing Microsoft Biz Central (evolving into the entry level .NET business services). They can make Microsoft's offering sound pretty tempting (got another call from one just this morning).

Soon enough, Microsoft's Great Plains reseller "partners" will find themselves squeezed in an ever shrinking gap between this direct telemarketing group and Microsoft Consulting at the high end, but that's another subject.

Meanwhile, it's important for everyone who favors freedom of choice in software to "work on" Microsoft's tarnishing public image. It's one of the best tools we've got to hold them at bay.

I had a lot of fun today working over Bill Gates and the concept of "Trustworthy Computing" as I shut down a substantial manufacturer / distributor for most of the day to exorcize W32/Klez.H@mm worm from their servers and workstations.

Oh yes, my prediction (I almost forgot). Microsoft is going to be big in this field. Their only other option is to divest the whole works, an ego blow they'd have a hard time rationalizing away. They aren't going to do that - this isn't a tactical hit and run like the Corel investment - this is core strategy.

Microsoft will be limited by their own greed and will eventually settle into a market of conservative midsize businesses that want a "turnkey" "one phone number" management system and are willing to pay a very stiff permium (ref IBM in a past era). The Biz Center market may or may not pan out at the small end - profitability of Web based concepts is still highly iffy.

The cranky, disorderly, "We're gonna do it MY way" and highly cost sensitive nature of small business owners and managers will assure a substantial market for more "individualist" management solutions, including Linux based solutions. The key here is effective marketing (and I don't mean big advertising budgets).

The bulk of the business market is small business, and big companies have an absoultely awful record at serving the needs of small businesses. Microsoft is a big company.

An encouraging note is the semi-organized storm of protest that has stalled UCITA.

In Ed Foster's recent InfoWorld Gripe Line column, he expressed amazement that UCITA didn't die when the ABA denounced it, and that the committee keeps claiming to have fixed it but makes no substantial changes. This is easily explained by Microsoft's support. They very much want it passed, and passed "as is", because it dovetails neatly with their other licensing and control issues. Eventually they'll rename it to lose the UCITA label, but it won't be substantially changed.

Even so, UCITA has passed only in AOL's territory (AOL is also a supporter), not in Microsoft's territory.

The same resistance has to be brought against anything else from the Hollings / Feinstein / RIAA / MPIA / Microsoft Axis of Evil. Once again, "working on" Microsoft's public image and generating public suspicion of anything they are involved in will pay dividends. Eventually legislators will learn to recognize items that are going to generate a lot of flack.