I'd write a memo titled: "No more beta testing our products on paying customers"

03/03/03
or 11/11/11 (if you prefer binary)

Attn: All staff.

Effective immediately, a new policy is in effect. We at Microsoft will no longer sell crap. To paraphrase Orson Wells' plug for Paul Mason- We shall sell no software before it's time. This means rigorous testing and quality control procedures shall be implemented.

I have seen the error of my ways. It is wrong to foist upon the general public bug-riddled software and expect them to find our sloppy coding- usually on production, critical servers. From this point on, we not only shall we do our own testing internally, but we shall reduce the price of our entire product line to fair levels. Our entire licensing scheme shall be reworked to be competitive and non-exclusionary. We shall no longer push our products as a single solution, and will quit exploiting integrators and pressuring our vendors to use our product line exclusivly. We shall embrace open source software as technically superior and try to learn from the progress made, instead of belittling it publicly.

Finally, as a last gesture of magnamosity, all employees may stop calling me "My Dark Overlord" when addressing me, and instead may call me "Mr. Gates."

William Gates,
Dark Overlord and Founder
Microsoft Corporation





Then I'd make sure my kids had enough money stashed away for college, and probably buy myself a new motorcycle.