For stunts like this to resonate and become positive social currency, they have to hit a nerve and contain a grain of truth. No-one believes Redmond will make a dent in the iPhone’s share. Microsoft’s biggest barrier to their usual mainstream OS play is of course Android, and that ain’t going under either.

Way to blow cash. Many brands would, ironically, kill for this kind of throwaway marketing budget. And do a lot more damage with it.

Internal competition is common at great companies. It can be wisely encouraged to force ideas to compete. The problem comes when the competition becomes uncontrolled and destructive. At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence. It’s not an accident that almost all the executives in charge of Microsoft’s music, e-books, phone, online, search and tablet efforts over the past decade have left.