Google vs Microsoft - Business as usual

Microsoft is trying their best to benefit from the hue and cry people are making over Google privacy policy changes. Google is answering it back with their own blog post (find a short summary here).

I personally am not so much concerned about the privacy policy changes which Google is making (to be frank I am not so buzzed about privacy policy changes in general - if you want to keep something really private then don't put it on the internet). But 'privacy changes' are nowadays treated almost like some personal attack or act of robbery!

From what I have heard most of such companies including Microsoft have such common privacy policies. So seems like a clear case Microsoft trying to make hay when the sun shines :).

Now it was only yesterday, I talked about Microsoft becoming benign and whether I had lost my mind to think like that. Today, it is proved that I have really lost it!    

Microsoft Offers Accelerator-Backed Startups $60,000* In Azure Cloud Usage

It helps to be sitting on a big pile of cash. Microsoft has shown this to us a number of times. They are offering free cloud time to leading startups chosen through their startup promotion partners.  The game of course is to increase adoption of Azure and push it forward. That said it is still a good gesture from Microsoft (at least some start ups might use the opportunity). Also given that Azure supports open technologies (yes java too), it is surely not a bad proposition for these startups.

For sometime now, I have had feeling that Microsoft is turning more benign than before. Am I right or should I go for a sanity test?