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Survey Says 63% of Americans Like MS the Way It Is
Sami writes "Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL) has released the results of their Nationwide Technology Survey (in PDF). It seems that the majority of Americans (63%) think that breaking up Microsoft would be a mistake. Guess who is one of the Founding Members of ATL."
The average person probably isn't bothered about whether or not microsoft has a monopoly. Not at the moment anyway, and they probably believe that Microsoft is responsible for the technology they use, and a great innovater. It's amazing what the marketing dollar can achieve.
As soon as I mentioned this article to a friend he likened it to the abused wife syndrom.
People don't like what microsoft is doing, but they're afraid of what will happen if they try to leave...
More interestingly, of these 63% who are against Microsoft being broken up, approximately 5% say they are following the trial very closely. So the other 95% are either not following it or "somewhat closely" (the lack of options would seem to put anyone who has heard of the trial into "somewhat closely". Seems an awful lot of people said they were against the break up without understanding what they were being asked.
I think the results stem from the fact that many people don't see how a break-up would be a good thing.
:) ), less than half the audience knew that "Where Do You Want To Go Today?" was Microsoft's slogan. (Given the choice of IBM, Dell, Compaq or Microsoft.) (The contestant had to burn his "ask the audience" lifeline on this seemingly easy question)
I don't think that most consumers are quite that saavy. In fact, on last night's "Who Wants to Be A Derrier...err...Millionaire?" (hey, I leave the TV on for noise while I code
Nay, I think that consumers just either don't know enough about it or they just don't care.
My journal has hot
A large portion of the /. population is, while often educated and knowledgeable, extremely narrowminded and biased.
Well, there's massaging the data and massaging the questions. Not that MS would have been able to get "Do you think the government should impose extreme penalties to break Microsoft's "supposed" monopoly?" on the quiz, but no doubt they could slant the questions so as to make people view the proposed governmental action in a negative light. Add to that the fact that 90% of people don't really know or care about "scary computer stuff," and you get that people aren't likely, on the whole, to want to break MS up. Add to that that many people own stock (or know and care for someone who owns stock) in MS and thus have self-interested reasons not to want to see MS broken up (not, of course, that a breakup of MS entails their stock would devalue, but as long as they believe it's likely, they'll have the motivation).
Moreover: since when do we take polls on technical questions anyhow? ("63% of people say the sun is five million miles from earth") The degree of harm caused by MS is a matter to be decided by looking at evidence most people (including, I bet, you and me) don't really know that much about. So the poll results don't seem all that meaningful anyhow.
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
Go grab the PDF file, and read for yourself how loaded these questions are. Here's a quick sample:
<RANT> Most regulations are not designed to specifically slow down technical innovation. How do we know a priori that a given regulation will slow down innovation? Sure, a regulation could be designed to do that specifically, but in most cases, regulations are meant to stimulate and guide industry, while curtailing harmful practices that hurt everyone in the long run. This question begs the person being asked to oppose this particular form of regulation (regulate to slow down innovation), and then tacitly extends the answer to cover all possible forms of regulation.</RANT>
*sigh*
Alot of the questions are of this form. Go read it.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
The site is inflamatory to say the least. After looking at the list of questions, it appears to my paranoid mind that the whole thing was meant to subtley fan the fears of 'guvment meddlin' in our affairs. As a consequence, all 1124 respondents were played like a fine violin, and so will a lot more people who read this 'report'. Unfortunately, the questions don't touch on the real issues, which are the brutal methods that Microsoft used to attain market dominance and thus get itself into this pickle in the first place. But them that controls the questions control the outcome to their own ends, not to the ends of truth.
It wouldn't surprise me if something like that could form between a company and it's customers, under the sorts of conditions Microsoft has developed.
Certainly, the kinds of responses that are being reported by people shifting away from Microsoft (eg: SGI, IBM and the NSA) are far more dramatic and sudden than you would expect from just changing one program on a machine holding thousands. But it's -exactly- the sort of response you could expect from people who have experienced traumatic bonding.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
note 2 I'll try to be impartial here (wrt the survey))
Here is the survey:
"Regulation" and "ligitation" will most likely be percieved as bad things just as "Higher prices" It is very likely that the respondant will link the two Government regulation of software design is not exacly what the monopoly case is about is it? I'll just note this for now. Tricky one. But the two are *not* mutually exclusive. I benefit from Windows, even though I might be hurt by MS business practices. This is a valid question. Keep in mind, though that 44% said that they did not follow the case at all Duh! Mesa want chepa missosoft thingyThat question is bogus. Ditto How many slashdotters would want government code in windows? Again, Who wants more bureaucracy? Why did they not mention GM as well?
To summarize: That survey said *nothing*
Also they fail to say wether knowledge of the case had any impact. And just calling registered voters creates a bias too (even if that probably does not matter here).
I actually *tried* not to be partial here, but that was one of the most crappy surveys I'vs seen (and i've seen some)
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Ask a socialogist and statician.
Glad you asked. ;) (I am not one, but I am studying in the field...)
I looked over this survey, and it is basically a 'push poll'. That is where you ask questions which are designed to influence a person's opinion. You do this by asking questions about one point of view, especially agree/disagree questions which bring up points in a person's head. By manipulating the questions, and the order in which they are asked, and getting the wording right, you have maneuvered a person who previously didn't have an opinion into having the one you want. Especially if you imply that a person should have an opinion.
They ask all these questions which imply the importance of the trial, then ask how closely they are following the MS trial. The options were 'following closely', 'somewhat closely' and 'not following'. Surprise surprise, people pick the middle answer.
I wouldn't put too much stock in this. In fact, we should be happy that people have this instinctive fear of regulation and government intrusion into our field. If they learn the details of the MS suit, then we'll see if opinion shifts, but the last thing we want is a list of rules and procedures which would strangle the small startups before they got off the ground.
I'd say there is virtually nothing we want the government to do about MS's monopoly. Now that we have the finding of fact, there are grounds for lawsuits against MS. I can see an argument for taking the "MS embraced and extended" proprietary standards and releasing them to an industry coalition. But open sourcing Windows 2000 would accomplish nothing (except reveal to programmers what they already know about the Mother of All Kludges). Break up MS? It would be like those slime monsters in D&D which when you cut them in half, now there are two of them! We'd have three or four MS monopolies (OfficeCorp, WindozeCorp, etc).
Mainly, we can watch the companies MS buried in the past go after them now. Since the industry is moving away from the desktop anyway, MS might be contained by technology already.
The average person will believe on faith any statement attributed to a scientist, a recent study showed.
Scientists reported that 93% of those surveyed believed all statements prefaced with "Scientists say", "Studies show", "Other findings include", or "According to recent research". According to this research, even when very few details of the study are given, and no controls are mentioned, 43% of respondents believe any random statistic given.
Among their other findings, these scientists have concluded that the gullibility effect is increased if unrelated vague future applications are presented. "A direct quote from someone involved in the project also has a measurable impact" said Dr. J. J. Charfman, leader of this effort. Dr. Charfman further added that a note of dissent from a random other party with no obvious qualifications actually increased the gullibility effect, contrary to expectations.
However, not all agree with Dr. Charfman's findings. "This research drastically overestimates the number of people who can read, and therefore the number of people who will be affected by reading articles of the type mentioned" pointed out Dr. C. Rackpot.
Dr. Charfman and his group believe that therapy based on their research could one day lead to a cure for cancer.
{From SegFault archives}
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I took this poll. I posted about it on /. at the time, but noone believed me, and claimed I was spreading FUD.. That's okay, I probably would have said the same thing.
Anyway, someone called me at my house and asked these exact questions (plus a lot more). But what strikes me as odd is that these results claim to have been taken on January 20-23, 2000. When someone running a survey asking me these exact same questions, it was well before that. Still in 1999, as a matter of fact.
So, I'm forced to wonder. Did they just do enough surveys until they got the results they wanted? I'm not entirely sure the same people called me as conducted this survey, but the questions are _exactly_ the same.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
As Mr. Z's comment points out, the survey questions were of the unfair "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" variety.
Back in the spring of 1998 Microsoft attempted to orchestrate a "Grassroots" movement, in which they staged a phony letter writing campaign to the press. Here's a little article about the incident, from the Detroit News, "Microsoft may try to orchestrate grassroots support":
"...The Los Angeles Times, in an article Friday, disclosed plans for a media strategy that includes opinion pieces and letters to the editor that appear to be local testimonials but are written by Microsoft's publicity machine..."
"...The documents reported by the Los Angeles Times, some labeled as draft copies and carrying [MS Spokesman] Shaw's name, stated that the media blitz was "geared to generating leverageable tools for the company's state-based lobbyists" and positive press clippings that "state political consultants can use to bolster the case..."
I'll bet this latest survey will be used as part of their "Freedom to Innovate" program. Here's a little quote from that page:
"...Contact Your Elected Officials Think your public officials need to hear from real consumers about Microsoft and the industry? Send them an e-message..."
"...We formed the Freedom to Innovate Network (FIN) as a response to the overwhelming amount of correspondence we received from around the U.S. and overseas regarding the trial with the Department of Justice and other public policy issues. The FIN is a non-partisan, grassroots network of citizens and businesses who have a stake in the success of Microsoft and the high-tech industry..."
So let's all do as they suggest, and "Contact Your Elected Officials" and let them "hear from real consumers about Microsoft and the industry." And then let's see just exactly what our congressmen think of MS's tactics.
... except that Microsoft still hasn't learned the art of being subtle in playing politics--probably because they have such contept for anyone outside the Redmond campus.
I get these sorts of surveys all the time. They're used to manipulate politicians--or at least the stupid ones, as any politician with the IQ of a house plant knows these sorts of surveys are always loaded.
But typical questions on the surveys I get are things like "should Americans keep their God given right to bare arms as was granted to us by our Founding Fathers, or should the government take their cue from athiest God-hating communist countries and take our rights away." (Gun Control) Or "should Women have control over their reproductive selves or should government be able to inprison women for attempting to control their fate in light of an unwanted pregnancy?" (Abortion).
These sorts of questionares are always loaded, and it's not a supprise that Microsoft is trying to play the same game. Too bad they're too arrogant to play it well.
Look at how slashdot mininterprets the poll information, the poll says that 63% of Americans believe that breaking up Microsoft is too extreme. I am not so sure that it is either, but in any case this is definately not the same as the slashdot headline that "Survey Says 63% of Americans Like MS the Way It Is." Hopefully other newspapers won't report it like this. (Of course with only 5% of the population paying close attention to the anti-trust trial, I don't think it matters too much).
Furthermore, I submit that regulation is frequently a good thing:
You see Noke, we don't live in a free market. The government, acting on the authority of the people, passes laws for the general good, even if this might constrain some individual freedom (like man x's freedom to rob man y). If they go to far, it tends to get overturned. Often though, everyone agrees that it is well worth it.
America would be a very different, and probably very lousy place had the government not regulated various industries. Though it should be noted that regulation usually only comes after that industry has gone beyond the bounds of what decent people are willing to put up with.
MS is turning out to be one of the first, although I'm sure you already knew about IBM's famous antitrust suit in which they were nearly broken up. IBM's business practices had to be significantly altered to avoid that fate, and it has improved the industry greatly. Hell, there probably would never have been an MS (or an Apple, or a Sun, or a Compaq, or a Dell, or an SGI...) had it not been for the government stepping in.
You'd do well to remember that the US does not operate as a free market. The only well-known free-marketeers I can think of offhand - the only people who will sell, buy or trade absolutely anything - would be the Mafia. Heck, they'll sell you your life, and they don't take kindly to government regulation. But I don't think you want to do business with them all the same
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.