Meta nit: Bloomberg broke this story. Seems to me like we should be linking to them instead of a 1-paragraph rewrite on TC
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-14/microsoft-said-to-s...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-14/microsoft-said-to-s...
Ah, but you see Techcrunch is run by Michael Arrington, who Fake Steve Jobs hates. And since Fake Steve Jobs loves Apple, and Hacker News hates Apple, that means we prefer Techcrunch in an enemy of my enemies friend is my friend kind of way.
/obscure geek reference
Though arguably rule #29 applies here too.
/wry meta-commentary
Also note that not always, but often enough to be unsurprising, on HN the shorter reply will receive vastly more karma than the long initial write-up. Hence the majority apparently favours the sound bite over more substantial journalism.