It's spooky how much the Microsoft spokespeople sound like they're with the government. Microsoft's Kevin Turner was asked recently if he was concerned about the negative effects of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 on its users. We are "not at all worried", he replied. Whew, thanks for feeling your customers' pain, dude! It's just like how President Bush came out recently saying there is no recession looming on the horizon. Wake up, dude!

Clearly there is something about being in a position of perceived dominant power that corrupts how an organization perceives reality. Such a situation makes stepping out of a 'perception control' oriented worldview difficult. "Nothing is every really our fault" is the main thrust of all public communications. True, some of the problem lies with us nagging journalist who are trying to get the public to see that the emperors have no clothes.

Regardless, wouldn't it be refreshing if organizations not only spoke the honest truth but took full responsibility for its actions? Rather than revel in spin, why can't Microsoft come out and just say "We're sorry, folks. We know that our actions are affecting you, and it's unacceptable to us, too. Here is exactly what we broke. Here is how we'll fix it. We'll make extra resources available to help our customers get through this without problems."

Now how hard was that?