Microsoft is Dead 19 years ago
I think one of the major contributors for the change of impressions of MSFT between older techies and younger is Linux. For us older guys, MSFT ate everyone alive during it's hayday - Borland, Novell, Quarterdeck, GEM, Amiga, and so on. It seemed that no one - not even IBM - could compete with MSFT and survive.
Linux thrives and it's the younger generation of techies that have carried on this battle in an unstoppable fashion. Curiousity + frustration + dogged determinism has led to a people powered movement that could not be crushed by money, FUD or other corporate methods. Democracy and anarchism is the antidote to corporatism and fascism.