Sometimes when working with the Microsoft stack, you'll be offered information on an "NDA", or non-disclosure, basis. Don't do it.

I'm still not sure why Microsoft keeps so much of their product development under wraps, but as they compete with Oracle and I don't, I don't blame them. It probably has something to do with "battlecards", which are the most ridiculous/effective thing I've ever heard of.

If you haven't heard of battlecards, imagine Pokemon, but with ECM systems. The IBM guy says "your database doesn't scale!" and if you haven't memorized the appropriate response line on the battlecard (by the way, the correct answer to any scaling question is "you're a towel!"), you lose the ECM Pokemon battle and surrender the sale. Whoever wins the most ECM Pokemon battles appears as a "visionary leader" at the top right of the Forrester magic quadrant.

Also, if we're playing ECM Pokemon, if one player offers to "build an ECM from scratch", they're tarred and feathered, and declared anathema, and a heretic. I don't make the rules, I'm just telling you what the rules are. Tarring and feathering is in the ECM Pokemon rulebook, right underneath the part endorsing referee bribes.

Anyway. I've only received NDA information a few times, and have never benefited from NDA knowledge.

Instead of benefiting from my NDA, all of a sudden I had to concentrate on censoring myself at all times. I had to censor my blog posts and conversations. And worse, my tweets. My tweets!

There's really not much more to say about NDAs in the Microsoft ecosystem. Unless the NDA offers a career-changer (such as getting access to the newest SP a full year ahead of the public), don't receive anything NDA. At best you'll satisfy your curiosity, and at worst you'll get yourself in trouble (the other career-changer).