Microsoft Blogger on Blogger Action

Local Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble put up a monster of a post yesterday fawning all over the other local Microsoft blogger Mini-Microsoft. Ok, maybe not "fawning" exactly, but, well, read on. If you need a primer Scoble is a MS-endorsed voice that can be critical of the company and Mini is an anonymous employee who's usually very critical of the company. They're both very popular among the Redmond-set and beyond.

So not only did Scoble give Mini a big hug he went so far as to claim that he would quit if Mini were fired from Microsoft. Like this, exactly:

I think he's doing a lot of good for the company and even if you don't agree with that point of view if Mini were fired I'd quit on the spot. I don't think the way you deal with dirty laundry is to get rid of the person hanging the laundry in the public square that way. Deal with the folks who are dirtying up the linen!

And then he goes on to name a bunch of ways that Microsoft could shut Mini up which mostly boil down to improving the company to the point where there's nothing left to complain about.

I dream of a Microsoft that no longer has anything for Mini, or his commenters to complain about. I dream of a day where every Microsoft employee feels like they are part of a mission, a positive mission for the improvement of all humankind.

It's great that Robert thinks Mini's great and that he'd lay his position in Redmond on the line like that for him, but it kind of begs the question: Are there plans within Microsoft to fire Mini-Microsoft? Must be, if Scoble's suddenly jumping to his defence. Of course that wouldn't shut him up, though. There is someone at Microsoft who is Mini-Microsoft and posts to that blog and is generally pretty pissed off, although it's clear he has an interest in the company's success, but Mini-Microsoft is also the huge hoards of other MS employees who seem even more pissed off then the original poster most of the time. Fire Mini and everyone who's ever posted a negative comment on his site? And lose Scoble on top of that? They'd have to shut down half the campus. And Vista still won't appear on your desktop any sooner.