"I'm the most honest man I know!" the compulsive liar said:

ZDNet reports Microsoft's Bill Gates as saying "For Microsoft, we always want to be in the lead, making the breakthroughs," in a recent interview, this from a company that hasn't had a notable breakthrough in anything other than "salesmanship" since its beginnings. You'll remember that Microsoft didn't invent the concept of "windows"; it didn't invent its own office software; it didn't invent the media player; it certainly did not invent the web browser. In fact you would be hard pressed to discover anything it made any sort of breakthroughs at all, other than creating the largest pile of gold any dragon could ever want to sit on.

The interesting paragraph from the news report by ZDNet follows:

With its annual MSN Strategic Account Summit, which runs through Thursday, Microsoft is both trying to hone its pitch to advertisers as well as reassure its investors, who have pushed Microsoft shares significantly lower since Microsoft announced plans last week to invest roughly $2 billion more than expected in its new businesses, largely MSN and Windows Live.

There's the problem: share prices are down. Oops! Microsoft has a history of money losing adventures. Their operating system and office program, traditionally, have been their sole money makers. Whenever they've strayed into other areas, they've taken a financial bath. The capitalist gamblers are hedging their bets that Gates and company are going out on another limb with a saw in hand.

And Microsoft just can't stand the notion that Google is making all of that money we've heard about recently. Dragons do be jealous folk, especially of other dragons.