Battlestar Gallactica is famous for its use of the fake word "Frak" as a substitute for the F-word in an attempt to provide verisimilitude whilst also reaching a general television audience. As the story goes, producer Glen A. Larson reasoned that it was impossible to accurately represent hard-flying, hard-fighting pilots without any profanity and so he coined "Frak."
This, fittingly, brings us to Microsoft. There is a word (not the F-word) that is required currency when discussing Microsoft's strategy. The word I'm referring to is used to describe the part of the body you sit on, the derrière, posterior, fanny, keister, buttocks... you know, the A-word.
For example, if I were to describe something about Microsoft as a "pain in the a..," you'd not only know what I'm talking about, you'd agree. Even most Softies working at Microsoft would agree. So, for the purposes of this article, where the goal is describing Microsoft's behavior, let's use the word "Axe" like Battlestar uses "Frak." That way, we can easily say things like "pain in the axe" or "stick up their axe," and no kiddies will suffer any lifelong emotional scars.
I bring all of this up because of
an article ZDNet's Ed Bott wrote about Windows 10 licensing. Here is how Ed described the article, "Microsoft's announcement of how it plans to package Windows 10 is yet another case where the lawyers and marketers turned a simple story into gibberish."
