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Microsoft hires SCO veteran as its Competitive Strategy guru

Microsoft just hired a one of the least qualified people it could have to head competitive strategy if truth is what it's seeking.

Matt Asay Contributing Writer
Matt Asay is a veteran technology columnist who has written for CNET, ReadWrite, and other tech media. Asay has also held a variety of executive roles with leading mobile and big data software companies.
Matt Asay

You can't make this stuff up. Sandy Gupta, whose UNIX experience was thoroughly discredited while at SCO for the paucity of his "analyses" of Linux's alleged infringement of SCO's UNIX code, has been hired by Microsoft as its director of Competitive Strategy within the Server & Tools Division.

From the press release:

Sandy Gupta is the kind of technology expert that Microsoft prides itself on having inside the company.

Well, no, Microsoft. This isn't, or should not be the kind of "expert" on which Microsoft prides itself. Microsoft has does so many things well and right, why does it have to do shockingly silly things like this? IBM and others have shredded Gupta's work for SCO, and a judge couldn't throw it out fast enough.

Gupta may be a great person, but he's not a UNIX, Linux, or Windows expert. Perhaps that's just what Microsoft wants? After all, SCO once said of Gupta that "he is able to laser-focus on product deliverables." If half-truths in the interest of competitive strategy are what Microsoft wants in terms of deliverables, Microsoft couldn't do better than to pull in the SCO team.

Disappointing. Shame on you, Microsoft.