I can mention a few things that were publicly obvious:
* The Halloween Documents didn't seem to be a fluke of behavior, but a bit of leaked evidence of an established executive culture of ruthlessness, paired with forward-looking strategic thinking (or "long cons"). This leaked bit of internal thinking is also consistent with the public history of brazen behavior, like backstabbing partners.
* Does anyone think that apparent corporate culture changed dramatically due to the brief fuss over the leaked Halloween Documents? Or would we normally assume that they kept devising and executing on other underhanded tactics? And have never been given a reason to change that culture?
* Plot twist: Early on in Linux popularity rise, MS's public behavior looked like they wanted to point to Linux and some kinds of open source as competition. And then, later, MS publicly appeared to be promoting some open source, to claim that some new MS proprietary moves (which some MS customer shops were concerned about, having been bitten before) weren't as proprietary lock-in as they'd otherwise look. So, multiple times, it publicly appeared that MS was doing a delicate dance of promoting open source. (More recent moves that might be related seem less clear, or haven't played out yet.)
* Everyone heard about FUD and EEE, as well as using legal proceedings to sabotage threats, but it would be reasonable to assume that any company that practiced these might also have additional tactics in their toolbox.
* The Halloween Documents didn't seem to be a fluke of behavior, but a bit of leaked evidence of an established executive culture of ruthlessness, paired with forward-looking strategic thinking (or "long cons"). This leaked bit of internal thinking is also consistent with the public history of brazen behavior, like backstabbing partners.
* Does anyone think that apparent corporate culture changed dramatically due to the brief fuss over the leaked Halloween Documents? Or would we normally assume that they kept devising and executing on other underhanded tactics? And have never been given a reason to change that culture?
* Plot twist: Early on in Linux popularity rise, MS's public behavior looked like they wanted to point to Linux and some kinds of open source as competition. And then, later, MS publicly appeared to be promoting some open source, to claim that some new MS proprietary moves (which some MS customer shops were concerned about, having been bitten before) weren't as proprietary lock-in as they'd otherwise look. So, multiple times, it publicly appeared that MS was doing a delicate dance of promoting open source. (More recent moves that might be related seem less clear, or haven't played out yet.)
* Everyone heard about FUD and EEE, as well as using legal proceedings to sabotage threats, but it would be reasonable to assume that any company that practiced these might also have additional tactics in their toolbox.