Microsoft has released a 12 step plan to help its image and communicate their intent to prevent the kinds of lawsuits like the one going on with the EU.

While I think the plan will work on a number of levels, I am disappointed that it had to happen this way.  I am not of the belief that Microsoft has never acted in the name of profit or that sometimes there have been less than the fairest of practices employed, but is this any different than any other company?  I would prefer that the oil and gas companies were held to such high standards or even just the cable companies.

The Twelve Tenets to Promote Competition are outlined on the MS site and should make anyone who has dealt with Microsoft in the past feel a bit better.  The reason for this is that in all my dealings with Microsoft the staff there have been zealots about dogma.  If it is a defined part of the company culture (as these tenets are sure to be) then it is embraced pretty thoroughly.

I have no doubt that this will help Microsoft by actually influencing the internal culture and that it will help competition.  I just wish the pressure it took to make a single software company do this were either applied to the industry instead or better yet to an industry that actually needs it.