Microsoft's mentality reminds me of a recent TedTalk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHopJHSlVo4

The researcher concludes that when you tell others what you are going to do, that your mind tricks itself into believing that the task has already been achieved, and reduces the incentive to do the hard work to actually achieve it. Thus, when Steve Balmer gushes to the press and says that iPhone is going to get obliterated, it probably reduces the chances of that actually happening.