If they were "bad to deal with", no company would ever work with them.
It should be that way, but it isn't.
One of the reasons is that leaders believe "someone" would have stopped them if they were that bad. So when when "propeller-heads" voice their skepticism they are simply viewed as "nerdy".
One other is vanity. Serfdom is presented as "partnership" or "selected" or "preferred". Leaders want to be the giants "partner", it connects to their hubris.
A third is a longing to be part of something big, with the perspective more on the Big than the Part part.
Why does it matter, is they really so much worse?
MS has leveraged their power to do evil even when it has harmed themselves.
They have sent letters in others names even to the congress and DOJ, even from dead individuals.
They pressure to the extent that producers payed Windows licenses for Linux computers. To the extent that they have dropped their most loved creation, like Hypercard.
They pollute projects and organizations, even UN sized ones like ISO. Google "norwegian vote" and the third entry is about ISOs downfall. Some of the most talented engineers choose not to seek employment with Statoil, one of the "stuffees", and they probably doesn't even know it. (The working bees don't burn bridges and Statoil stays ignorant).
They hoodwinkled investors in the SCO scam. The scam has landed SCO in bankruptcy court, devalued Novell until they Attachmate and MS could loot them, and caused a lot of grief for many others.
They have lined the pockets to thugs that have harassed journalists, and the journalists families, that have covered actions that MS would prefer obscured.
They have falsified others documents, like the Vienna conclusions.
They actively sabotaged IBMs OS2, as a "partner"
They damaged Netscape, the installed browser, when the owner of a computer updated the operating system, and thus irrevocably damaged Netscape Communications Corporation
They did their best effort to scam Spyglass, this quote from Eric Sink should tell you something:
Licensing our browser was a huge win for Spyglass.* And it was a huge loss.* We got a loud wake-up call when we tried to schedule*our second*conference for our OEM browser customers.* Our customers told us they weren't coming because Microsoft was beating them up.* The message became clear:* We sold our browser technology to 120 companies, but one of them slaughtered the other 119.
And then on and on and on
Even to the positively absurd like helping First4Internet rootkit Windows computers.
I deal with them everyday.
I have always had great experiences dealing with them.
Some of the nicest people I've ever met.
The HP and IBM reps are dicks. I refuse to work with most of their people.
Your local reps is important. Just don't for a second believe that nice reps or resellers would make it safe to sign a contract with Microsoft.
The "story of the scorpion" is a older "tale of the new Microsoft", though they are interchangeable.
