Is it just us, or is Microsoft displaying an uncharacteristically high amount of self-awareness these days? First they come to realize that "Clippy," their automated assistant in Office for Windows, is annoying (gee, really?) and decide to shove him in the drawer for the next release; they even lampooned the irritating little git as part of the Office XP advertising campaign. And while we thought that must have just been a freak bout of lucidity, now we're starting to wonder.

See, as of two weeks ago, we had cast aside any doubt of Microsoft's fundamental cluelessness; that was due in large part to the revelation that the company was actually doling out prizes to PC manufacturers who were willing to rat out any of their customers who had the gall to try and purchase a computer without Windows loaded onto it. Seriously, if Joe Boxbuilder called Microsoft to report that XYZ corporation had just tried to order a so-called "naked" PC to use as a (shudder) Linux server, Microsoft would send Joe a free Fossil Big Tic watch. Truly this was a visionary moment for the company.

Except that now, according to faithful viewer Hes Nikke, Microsoft has publicly admitted that its "Snitch For Prizes" initiative was, well, not terribly bright. An article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer quotes company spokesperson Matt Pilla as stating that the whole thing was "a super-brief pilot program" intended (supposedly) to remind corporate customers that their Windows site licenses didn't entitle them to install Windows on newly-purchased, unlicensed PCs. (This is evidently some strange use of the term "site license" with which we were previously unaware.)

Anyway, Pilla goes on to call the whole thing "admittedly stupid... We did it once, briefly, and ended it several weeks ago. We won't do it again." Furthermore, he admits that the whole reason Microsoft needed to remind its corporate buyers of the limitations of their site licenses in the first place was because said agreements are "very, very confusing." Please, no more of this truth and candor-- we're just not used to this kind of thing from Redmond!