Your assumption here is that the blame game somehow is the path to productivity and "the answer". This, to me, means you have a lot of other problems where you work - your platform doesn't matter at all.
You're very right, however in that no one gets fired for using Microsoft - but that's changing. Don't take my word for it - ask the guys in Building 42 - they know it too.
You touch on a very particular, hot topic in the IT world - that having a phone number to Microsoft will solve problems. Sometimes it does - but most often that comes at more than a bit of a price :).
On the flip side - my support channel is Google and I find my answers in about half the time as I would with a topic such as ASP.NET MVC. Rails is quite mature and people have tried everything with it - found where it's great and where it blows. I've had more to read on it than you can imagine.
Anyway - it is a sad truth and one that's about to change as the old guard at your company cycles out and are replace by people with knowledge and pedigree - namely people like me - who will systematically cull the policies that don't make business sense, and keep the ones that do :).
This doesn't mean "ax all things Microsoft" - it means "find the best value and leverage it". MS is changing its focus as it sees this - it knows this shift is coming - it's why ASP.NET MVC is Open Source and SQL Express is free, and more is on the way :).
On blame, every executive staff of a large company that I've ever seen casts blame. Yes there are startups with a small number of people that are all pretty even keel but as soon as you get to a certain size you'll get opposing interests and that's where blame comes from. The blame game is a political game played by people trying to get leverage over other people in order to get more resources. It's stupid but it's the reality of the world. If you don't see it you just aren't high up enough to be the one fighting for resources. Because as someone who read about Microsoft as a kid I know it was happening at Microsoft (Silverberg/Alchin?)
As far as brand, that's just human nature. Look at the side of any Grocery Store brand and you'll see the same ingredients as the big brands. But any grocery store manager will tell you Captain Crunch outsells generic white box crunch 100-to-1. That's why companies build up brands in the first place. That's why Microsoft brags about being one of the most trusted brands in the world.
So this really isn't old guard as much as it's the stupidity of human nature and I really don't see it changing that much.
P.S. This is Username: TomOfTTB not Username: SamAtt. If he doesn't want me posting as him he should learn to @#%& log out.
Actually, I let two guys go at my current company exactly because they picked Microsoft technologies. And I've repeatedly begged the CEO to bring the old CTO back so I can fire him as well.
You're very right, however in that no one gets fired for using Microsoft - but that's changing. Don't take my word for it - ask the guys in Building 42 - they know it too.
You touch on a very particular, hot topic in the IT world - that having a phone number to Microsoft will solve problems. Sometimes it does - but most often that comes at more than a bit of a price :).
On the flip side - my support channel is Google and I find my answers in about half the time as I would with a topic such as ASP.NET MVC. Rails is quite mature and people have tried everything with it - found where it's great and where it blows. I've had more to read on it than you can imagine.
Anyway - it is a sad truth and one that's about to change as the old guard at your company cycles out and are replace by people with knowledge and pedigree - namely people like me - who will systematically cull the policies that don't make business sense, and keep the ones that do :).
This doesn't mean "ax all things Microsoft" - it means "find the best value and leverage it". MS is changing its focus as it sees this - it knows this shift is coming - it's why ASP.NET MVC is Open Source and SQL Express is free, and more is on the way :).