The beginning of the end for F1 supremacy?

The upcoming changes are the single tyre manufacturer (in some ways a pity, but not that big a deal really) and the single reference ECU provided for all teams.

The second is more of a concern to me. Over the past few years, Renault's launch control system really made for interesting races - without it, their previously weak engine power would have meant they were not competitive.

If we are going to have a single ECU supply, then at least one thing we should get from it is higher reliability. The design should change less, which means that a bad ECU shouldn't end someone's race. And since the ECU will be supplied for the team, not by them, imagine how angry they would be if the externally provided ECU ended their race.

That is why it is so incredibly scary that SPEEDtv.com is reporting that the chosen ECU supplier is Microsoft. Now hopefully that is either a joke or a misunderstanding on the behalf of SPEEDtv.com. Microsoft knows nothing about ECU design and little about embedded real time systems (some would say they know little about software design at all...). In search of official information, I did a google search for site:formula1.com Microsoft. The only result I got was one page showing:

Are you trying to go a level in the directory without having the base directory present?
Invalid use of Null
Microsoft VBScript runtime error

I'd hate to get that error while heading towards a corner at over 300kph - it's not even gramatically correct!