Sorry but it would be helpful if offlist responses were labeled and trimmed post's were noted, just for the sake of lessing confustion, if anything else. For some reson my MTA missed a response post to the list and this one is not labeled offlist, that part is kind of an informal protocol as I recall.
Sorry I'm a little confused, are you saying that skepticism about IBM's intentions is not the same as skepticism about Redmond's, simply because that it would be conspiracy theory to suggest that IBM would not tell everybody about the eventual business plan, at the same time.
I'm saying that I don't trust the source -- based on crackpot comments from the past, bolstered by recent conversations with RH employees saying the claims were utter shit.