The problem as described in Scott's post is that middle management (the lords) answers only to itself when the prince (Ballmer) is weak. This is all-too-typical for large corporations, and hasn't changed since Machiavelli documented the phenomenon.

>>>WPF is dead
>
>I'm just imagining the fuss if medical device manufacturers behaved this way. It seems there's no fuss in IT- merely learned discussions about which supposedly core technology will get the chop next.