Stardate 20010719.2251 (On Screen): This article describes Microsoft as being the "Tonya Harding" of technology, and as a reason Harding's commissioning of a assailant to whack a competitor on the knee and take her out of competition. I agree with the description, but not for that reason. When I read the headline, an entirely different similarity between them occurred to me.
It's long been observed that there is a certain conceptual corruption about women's figure skating, especially in the Olympics. There's no other athletic event where the performers have to dress up pretty and put on makeup like movie actresses (or hookers); what have those things got to do with athletic competition? In principle the judges should be observing how the woman skates not how she looks or what she seems to be. But it goes even deeper, because another essential element seems to be that all championship Olympic Women's skaters have to be virgins or at least pretend to be. No skater ever has a boy friend, let alone a husband, until after she stops skating. It's almost like there's a clinical test before skating to make sure of her qualifications. Every skater, that is, except one: Tonya Harding. She was not necessarily the best skater in the world, but she was definitely competitive and she earned her place on the Olympic team, and she had a chance of winning. But she was married! Presumably that meant she'd actually (whisper it) done it with her husband! And that inspired comment, especially by comparison to the fresh-faced virginal Nancy Kerrigan (the victim of the attack) who was the favorite to win. Harding herself complained about this ridiculous standard at the time in interviews, and quite frankly she was right. It shouldn't have anything whatever to do with the competition. But it did, and it still does. And these days they guarantee the virginity of their championship skaters by making them compete when they're 14. Just to make sure.
The analogy to Microsoft is that certain people also want their high-tech companies to be virgins. It's not enough to win or to produce successful products which solve problems, you have to do so without any trace of sin. It's the old "with the apparent effortlessness of Gods" complaint. Apparently there is a right way to win, and Microsoft hasn't done it that way. Microsoft is the married company (who "does it") in a field of apparent virginal competitors. (Ha!) But unlike Harding, Microsoft not only has "done it" (without shame) but also won quite conclusively over and over and seems undefeatable. They won't retire, and they won't stop sleeping around. That's just not right. We want our champion to be a virgin, dammit! (discuss)
