It's been a good week for Microsoft and surveys. The Redmond reprobates own the most valuable technology brand in the world, according to a survey by Interbrand and Business Week magazine. The Windows wonks are second overall to Coca-Cola (I see a new slogan coming on: "Our software may suck, but it won't rot your teeth").
In another survey conducted by the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), Internet Explorer was named as the most influential product of the past 25 years. (Strangely, Netscape Navigator, from whose loins IE was whelped, barely made the top ten.) In second place: MS Word (not XyWrite, WordStar, or WordPerfect). Windows 95 came in third, and fourth place was a tie between the Apple iPod and Microsoft Excel.
You get the impression these guys have been walking around handing out Rolex watches? That might influence me.
Even Ballmer has been rehabilitated. According to a story in The Register, a Microsoft employee has taken Ballmer's infamous monkey dance and mashed it up into an iPoddish commercial for the Zune. (You can watch it here.) It's a brilliant piece of work, but he apparently hosted it on an internal Microsoft server, which means he's probably enjoying some enhanced interrogation techniques in a server closet somewhere in the Northwest.