Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft PR: Looking Under The Hood

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the leave-that-tracking-info-in-remember dept.

mtr writes "An interesting article uncovering some embarassing and amusing PR practices of our friendly software giant had been recently published by Michael Zalewski. The author recovered change tracking information from all the DOCs published on microsoft.com, and came up with something to cheer you up. It's funny when it happens to others - but even better if it fires back on themselves. Read the full story here."

6 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. Cue Lawyers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I believe the analysis posted here meets the fair use criteria and does not disclose trade secrets - because it is a critical review of short excerpts of publicly available resources and data accessible with a click of a button in Microsoft Word - but I am not willing to dispute it too vigoriously if I receive a cease-and-desist letter. As such, enjoy it while it lasts.
    Hint, hint, save a copy. I wonder how long it will take Microsoft lawyers to smell blood. Wagers? I'll put five bucks on "yesterday".
  2. Tool? by Joe5678 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Odd... that tool linked to in the article and again in the post, links to a tool that removes all traces of office from the operating system, it has nothing to do with tracking changes or removing them from documents.

  3. Some of the conclusions are dubious by syousef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Some of the conclusions are dubious. Most of this looks like fairly standard business practices.

    For example xxxx CEO of blah said yyyy
    may simply be the result of the employee drawing up the report not knowing the full name or title of the person who made the statement.

    As for exact facts and figures about a customer being included, this looks like they got asked not to include them, or decided against it, and complied.

    Where's the story here? There's plenty of more interesting things that go on. This is just pure MS bashing. Bashing any company you dislike for genuinely bad business practices this way is a fantastic way to come across as a lunatic with a chip on your shoulder, but not a good way to be taken seriously when pointing out a company's flaws.

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  4. This is what a PDF is for by waynegoode · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This is one of many reasons why you should publish documents in PDF format. But, Microsoft can't do this--it would be admitting the problem exists.

    I guess Microsft thinks its better to ignore the problem than solve it, if the solution is not yours. What's the worst that could happen? ;)

  5. These aren't the quotes you're looking for... by laird · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This isn't journalism, this is a press release -- professional marketing people _always_ write quotes for people to "say" because they know what they want said. I don't know how many times marketing people have written quotes to attribute to me. They review it with the person they're "quoting" to make sure that it's OK, of course. So all we're seeing here is normal press release editing -- the marketing person comes up with something gushing and a rough idea of who ought to "say" it, and in the editing process it turns into an actual person saying something more reasonable. So while it's a certainly a bit embarassing seeing internal comments released to the public, there's nothing shocking or incriminating here.

    --
    Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
    1. Re:These aren't the quotes you're looking for... by laird · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "a press release is journalism. They often end up printed verbatim in the newspaper."

      Then what the newspaper is doing isn't journalism, it's advertising.

      --
      Enable 3D printed prosthetics!