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Microsoft Rolls Out New Anti-Linux Ad Campaign
Anonymous Coward writes "Microsoft has launched a new ad campaign that purports to give 'objective third-party information' comparing Windows to Linux." See the ad campaign website for more, uh, facts.
Here's my favorite...one of the papers is called:
"Lower Windows Staffing Costs Provide a TCO Advantage over Linux"
I'd read it, but it'd probably give me a headache. I mean, how in the world could they possibly tell me that having to have MSCE guys in the building 24-7 just to keep the net up and worm free is less expensive than Linux?
I don't think staffing costs are the best argument to demonstrate windows superior TCO. Kinda like using Little Big Horn to demonstrate Custer's tactical ability.
Weaselmancer
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Everybody here has a high ID number. The smart people with low ID numbers left long ago because they got sick of the trolls. Either that or the low ID people just created new accounts with higher ID numbers so they can troll without blowing their old karma. I guess that's for you to figure out.
Falsifying results on a research project, even something like the one you describe as work for hire, can come back to haunt you later if you decide to pursue an academic career in the physical sciences.
It would really suck to have your Ph.D. discredited because you did something like this, NDA or no NDA, contract or no contract.
Always remember, when doing research: Lab notes are admissible in court. I'd say, signing a contract that binds you to an agreement that you will falsify results, is already a sufficient ethical violation to sully your career. Before you've even done the deed.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Absolutely. I deal with marketing people a lot and they generally say that baseing a campaign on trashing your competitors products is a big no-no. It can backfire badly. The fact that they are doing this demonstrates that they feel they don't have any other effective marketing weapons against Linux - i.e. promoting their products on their own merits isn't working so well these days.
Well, yes, of course. But what you're missing here is that the study compared Windows 2000 to Linux over a five year period. And where was Windows 2000 in 1998? So one could argue that Windows 2000 has come a lot further than Linux in that time. (Ignoring the fact that is was 'NT' before that ;-P)
What I *really* want to know, is where IDC keeps the time machine, because, if I count right, Windows 2000 was released less than 5 years ago making this study temporally improbable.
Let's hope that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space 'Cause there's bugger-all down here on Earth.
Two things may end up making marketing to "dummies" irrelevant:
1) Smart companies with IT directors who can actually do the job of those under them to a good extent.
2) Smart companies who actually listen to their IT directors.
When companies hire managers who do nothing but manage yet don't understand (read: haven't done) the job of the folks they manage, you get problems. When company CEOs like to micromanage the company instead of leaving decisions to other, more qualified people specialized in their field, you get problems.
I think with the economy on the rise, with companies trusting IT more since the 90's and realizing IT's place in a corporation, and with companies with over-protective, over-bearing and witless gits in management learning that this is a bad thing, we might begin to see changes in the effect of this kind of FUD.
Of course I could be quite incorrect and nothing will change.
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Back during the "Take the Pepsi challenge" commercials, Pepsi's entire ad campaign was focused on how much better they are then Coke. A sure sign that Coke was beating them in the marketplace.
So is this the equivelant of Microsoft doing a Pepsi?
This is true. But, the underlying reason that I keep hoping that people "get it", rather soon that ASAP, are a few:
1) The more people start using Linux, the more chance that that's what I'm going to WORK with and on in the future. More fun work.
2) The bigger market share Linux gets, the more people will start taking Linux into consideration with products and services they supply. This means it gets easier for me as a Linux-using consumer to "be a part of the world". This is already getting easier and easier.
However, there are a few things I'm really afraid of, the most notable one is the various e-governement initiatives. I'm dead scared that these will be based on proprietary, Windows-only solutions, making it harder and harder to be a part of the society as a non-Windows-user.
This is the main reason that spreading the word of and furthering the acceptance of Linux is something that I engage in. Once we have true competition, and people have to start factoring in the non-Windows-users or lose significant business, I couldn't care less what people actually use. It's a free world.
If MS is claiming any sort of meaningful result from a 5-year study, let's see ...
;)), and the X Window System was happily doing what X did on Suns and SGI machines. Some google searching finds that January 5 years ago is when the "The first 2.2 prerelease kernels appear, starting the final push toward the release of the long-awaited 2.2 kernel."
c e.org/MPlayer/MySQL/etc etc. That is, systems running software to do stuff.
... I'm looking at an over-simplified black and white world for the purposes of illustration :)
5 years ago, it was early 1999. Linux existed, and more than existed -- it was already nicely stable and robust, had inspired some print journals and ongoing festivals (ok, we call them "conventions" and "expos" but c'mon
Now, not that the curves are easy to define, but if you could match up (in your own domain, naturally) the Windows curve of improvement vs. the Linux curve, what would you find? Has Windows gotten better as quickly (for your uses) as Linux has? Do you believe that in another (1,3,5) years that Windows will either remain or have become "better" than Linux for your application?
And Yes, I mean "GNU/Linux" and more to the point GNU/Linux/X/Apache/Perl/Python/KDE/GNOME/OpenOffi
This ignores Mac OS X or other Unix varieties of course, and does not get into the fact that "Windows" describes a gurgling sea of related, slightly different operating systems
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
If someone doesn't run Linux, that's no skin off anyone's back but their own. Let them pay for their poor choice and move on with your life.
... hypothetically, let's pretend) well, they've managed to hype and market and move an inferior product, garnering billions of dollars in the process. All of this is money that could be going into Linux and OSS for development. I'm not saying we should capitalize and proprietarize Linux, but Bill Gates is buying islands and building mansions (and stocking schools with Windows boxes) with money that could be used to develop a cheaper kernel into something more secure, usable, or flashy (or whatever). Hell, there'd probably be plenty to get the schools even MORE, BETTER computers running a free and communally supported OS.
Yes, but it does impact other users. IF Windows is inferior (er
Let's say (God forbid) that you really loved Crystal Pepsi. You can buy it all you want and drink it and love it, but if nobody else buys it, the product will be discontinued and you'll end up losing a product you enjoyed because the market moved that way. Yeah, it's the way of the world, and that economics and free enterprise, but that doesn't mean we won't lose a potentially better product in the process.
...but I have to say it. Who Cares?
We all realize that the success of Linux has not been because Linux has a large marketing arm that allows Linux Open Source Developers to produce a weak product and make up for it with pretty little catch-phrases like "Do more with Less!" (Windows Server 2003...I kinda though it was less too).
Allow me to admit something (Without being lit on fire). I was a huge Microsoft Advocate up until about 2 years ago. I argued with all of you "*nix People" until my keyboard wore out. I laughed at all of you who said it was better, faster, more reliable, and scoffed at the notion of Microsoft being an indestructable Monopoly. But yet, today, I sit in front of my Gentoo Linux based OS, running KDE, viewing Slashdot on Konquerer (something just couldn't get me away from browsers integrated into operating systems). Why? Because it works better, I can run my one copy on all of my computers without paying for it, and I genuinly like the Linux Experience over that of the Windows Experience (Hey, I can run an FTP server, mail server, file server, and still browse the internet without paying for a server based license).
Linux *never* provided me any kind of candy coated marketing slogans or white papers. Microsoft did. And they're only doing this because they realize that Marketing is the one place where they can over-power Linux. Too bad marketing doesn't run my computer.
Honestly, from my perspective the learning curve was difficult (still is, actually), and it is harder to find lower-wage technical staff that can troubleshoot Linux...but that's only because Microsoft has the operating system that is on most peoples' computers. It's not always going to be like that, and it appears to be trending in a direction away from MS. What in the heck are they going to do when they can no longer depend on support staff being unfamiliar with Linux?
When people realize that their next Windows is going to give more control to the Software Vendors and Content Providers than it gives to the user as it "Checks in" to ever-more-common Activation Code systems on the Internet to make sure you're not stealing crap that isn't worth what they want to charge you for it in the first place...how is Microsoft going to market their way out of it? It's doubtful that they will be able to depend on their "Hey, what other choice do you have?" attitude anymore.
But from my perspective: I don't treat my OS with any more reverence than I treat my toaster. I don't care who runs it, I don't care who doesn't. There's plenty of software for it, plenty of reasons I wouldn't run anything else, and I think others would agree regardless of what a Microsoft Sponsord report from IDC says. Linux is like a virus. We got the "brass" to allow us to install one of them into our shop about 2 years ago. Everyone was so happy with its performance that now we have several and are planning to move ever more important enterprise based functions in that direction.
"God is dead!" - Nietzsche
"Nietzsche is dead!" - God