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He doesn't want to draw too much attention on these issues, because he knows all Skype conversations are being tapped. If he starts to say that "he's worried about being tapped", people might actually pressure him to do something about Skype wiretapping (he's still chairman at MS and has great influence there).

Well Microsoft has blundered into trouble before by not paying attention to the real world. The whole antitrust thing and the amusing cock up over contractor/permanent employees.

I bet China and Russia might be interested in Billg's phone both from an industrial espionage and other more political point of view.

That's what monopoly does to a corporation in the long run! When Microsoft was completely dominating in the '90s, raking in billions of dollars in profit, they became lethargic. When they realized what was going on, it was too late.

No both of the examples are 1 showing the political naivety of Microsofts senior managers and 2 MS's HR being incompetent

I would rather have Eric Schmidt's answer. It's not always something to take at face value but it almost always is more revealing.