This reminds me of an experience with a former employer. Company A, heavy users of Salesforce, was acquired by company B, which was married to M$ Dynamics. On the day of the announcement, one of the bullet points was something like, "the new division will transition from Salesforce to Dynamics over the next three years."
I think it took three weeks for all of the Salesforce admins and most of the devs to quit. They had to hire a small army of contractors just to keep things running, and last I heard, the parent company ended up switching to Salesforce anyway. All they had to do was say, "We don't know what we're going to do yet," which besides saving them tons of money would've been literally true as well.
I've seen that sort of strategic ambiguity used to try to have your people and your decision too.
It may work for a little while, but generally you're going to be left with the people who are young, naive or trapped. One of the problems with hiring smart people is that they don't stop being smart when you're trying to manipulate them.
This is a super important point that almost no executive management ever internalizes; The people doing the work are smarter than you and trying to manipulate them is alienate them.
The solution I was suggesting was not to play dumb, but to notice the looming problem and try to address it. I don't know what the right plan would've been, but I suspect it would've ended with, "...generous severance package for those that stay and help us through the transition."
Well, I was 13 in the 90s, so that part also applies. :-)
Microsoft had a stranglehold on the computing industry in the 1990s due to its near-monopoly on PC operating systems. Their software was also much lower quality, which led to widespread hatred of the company among computer geeks. Hence the derisive dollar sign.
2010s Microsoft was a shadow of its former self, so I think any usage of the dollar sign then is more of a holdover from the 90s than anything else.
I think it took three weeks for all of the Salesforce admins and most of the devs to quit. They had to hire a small army of contractors just to keep things running, and last I heard, the parent company ended up switching to Salesforce anyway. All they had to do was say, "We don't know what we're going to do yet," which besides saving them tons of money would've been literally true as well.