I suppose if you are not really interested in getting anything accomplished with a business - just buying and selling to make your own money - then maybe it does make sense to spend as much money on infrastructure.

But that is exactly what they are doing.  And remember that once the capital investment is made part of what they will be selling is the depreciation on that "investment" ... all four of the companies thus far bought are quite profitable, but plateaued.

And it cuts both ways ... if the buying entity sees the ability to cut operational overhead by going (back in our case) to LAMP (after taking advantage of, and perhaps financing the conversion from, the depreciation) then it's a potential plus.  The flip side, of course, is that if the finance people are positively disposed toward MS then they see it as valuable in and of itself.

I'm certainly not going to argue the business side of the equation with the VC boys.   They have a proven track record of doing the kind of thing they're doing with us (or to us ... it's kind of odd to see the corporate rah rah - and see people respond to it - when our "owners" say as plain as day that "we're using you like a piece of plywood").   It was also far from a surprise to me that this happened, despite the LAMP or java consensus going up the tech chain - MS is a stakeholder in the VC's underwriters.