The perception among a lot of customers is that nobody understands Microsoft products like Microsoft. Many of them want the security of that direct relationship with Microsoft.

You could try making sense out of the universe, but you were too small and the parts you needed to see were too large or even smaller.

They're taking a more intimate role, and not depending solely on partners to give that support. It is a response to backlash from customers who wanted Microsoft to have more of a role there, to stand as the ultimate backstop for support.

That's where they're stepping up to the plate and saying, 'We at Microsoft are going to get more involved in the top-end, mission-critical [support] available from partners, be it HP or whoever.

[Until the release of J2EE 1.4] you have a situation where Java developers have to work in potentially non-standard ways to support Web services, which isn't necessarily a terrible thing if you're working with one of the major vendors' tools suites like IBM, Sun, or Oracle.

Interestingly, it sort of raises some of the issues about Microsoft bundling features into the operating system, which of course has been core to the whole antitrust issue.