Spyware Fumble for Bill G.

So, about 1.5 years ago, I interviewed with a guy in the security / anti-virus group at Microsoft. (Yup, they have such an animal. And a strategic plan to address spyware, viral infestations, and all that stuff.) But this guy tells me that they had a whole plan to acquire various players in spyware elimination and virus fighting software, and roll most of it right into Longhorn.

Made sense. A hell of a lot of sense.

However, then this guy tells me that the executives, in their all-knowing foresight, decided to kill the plan and told them they could go ahead and conclude negotiations to acquire one of these little vendors. The guy -- and remember this is in an internal interview -- shakes his head, and says "now what do we do with this little company? Doesn't make any sense to acquire them now, but here we are, with some little company that we have to fit into Microsoft, somehow."

I'm betting this Giant acquisition is the one he was talking about (of course, even if I knew the real name of the company, I couldn't tell you in plain speak). So you go figure it out. Here's the Motley Fool story. As the Fool says: "better late to the party than a complete no-show, I guess. Today, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft announced it had acquired private Giant Company Software, maker of anti-spy and spam-blocking software."

It's gonna suck to be them, I bet. All dressed up for the Microsoft party, and nowhere to go!