…And it’s something we’re going to see a lot of in 2006.
FactoryJoe had a meeting with Microsoft (in a social setting, I don’t think for a job…) in which he was floored, me to, on someone from Microsoft saying:
“…even though that might not be as open as you might like, we are learning.”
Now, in the past I’ve been quoted as saying “Microsoft – there’s a company I would never work for“. My ex-boss Skardhamar used to work for MSN before coming to the BBC – oh, how we used to laugh… 🙂
But you know what – big business is slowing coming round, in the same way that the uber-far-out ‘everything should be free’ crowd has come into the fold quite a bit in recent years. Microsoft is a great example of that – and whilst they are not there yet in my mind – they’ve come along way.
What I’m trying to say is there’s a happy medium for everyone. And I think we’ll see more and more companies – big companies – in tech and media adopting a corporate persona that far more embraces the concepts of accountability, transparency, openness, freedom, forward-thinking that they did 5 years ago.
There is enough proof that this can have a positive affect on their bottom line, and that’s what business wants to hear. Normal people – not just ‘with it’ folk like you and me – are also beginning to understand that they can demand things to be on their terms.
I’ll leave you with this thought: DRM would fail overnight if no-one bought media that used it.