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Why are Microsoft Customers Scared of Criticising Microsoft?
gsfprez asks: "This article documents the stories of three Microsoft customers (organizations that voluntarily buy Microsoft products) who are clearly unhappy with the product offerings of Microsoft - but are simultaneously petrified of this fact being made public. My question to the crowd is not regarding the subject matter of the article: rather, I want to know what is it that could scare a company away from telling a product vendor that they are unhappy and merely *considering* not buying their next product? Fear of reprisal (in the form of a software audit) is simple extortion...no? More ethereally - do we actually live in a world where MS not only 'demands' you buy their new products, but appears to have people pissing their pants at the thought of doing otherwise?"
Volume licensing agreements pretty much spell out that they have the right to conduct an audit. Generally, having pissed off employees calling the BSA (Business Software Alliance) and saying you have pirated software tends to convince judges that there is probable cause for a warrant if there is a refusal to voluntarily do an audit.
There are no forced audits without a judge signing a warrant and law enforcement officers along to serve that warrant.
from the article, it appears that Office 11 will be "incompatible" with any MS operating system earlier then Windows 2000 SP3...so, from that, i'm taking that it won't run, not that it just won't be supported...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
It's the PHBs, too. Microsoft FUD has so completely blown over the non-technical that anyone espousing an anti-MS thought....
...is FIRED. I've been excommunicated from two jobs in the last year by pointy-haired High Priests -- er, ah, I mean MCSE's -- because I dared to challenge the FUD -- er, ah, I mean the One True Religion -- of Micro$oft.
Believe me, the folks in the article have ample reason to fear speaking out. The PHB's only need to "make an example of" a few people like me to make everyone else fall into line.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll