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Microsoft Found Guilty of Misleading Advertising
gtoomey writes "The UK Advertising Standards Authority has upheld complaints that Microsoft misled consumers by running advertisements claiming Linux is 10 times more expensive than Windows. The print advertisements used "independent research" to compare the cost of Linux on an expensive mainframe to Windows on a PC."
The advert appeared in an IT magazine and was headed: "Weighing the cost of Linux vs Windows? Let's review the facts". The ad contained a graph comparing the cost in US dollars between a Linux images running on two z900 mainframe CPUs and a Windows Server 2003 image running two 900MHz Intel Xeons chips.
Hmm, who wants to help me do some "independent research" of our own? We could compare Linux running on a WRT54G versus the cost of, say, a dual CPU P4 XEON system with 4 gbs RAM, SCSI array, redundant everything, and dual 19" LCD monitors.
Lesse, that makes linux roughly 100 times cheaper (70$ vs. 7000$). Didn't I also see this ad on slashdot and in Linux Journal?
Not intended to be a flamebait, it's not just a Microsoft problem - all marketing people are evil. Perhaps we should enact the death penalty for marketing droids?
feh. stuff.
Are you surprised that statistics can be bought and bartered? Everyone knows that the person paying for the data can make it show whatever they want.
What's stopping your guys complaining to your government agencies?
It's interesting that the ASA slapped Microsoft on the wrists for running the comparison on both different HARDWARE and software.
They should have also enquired into this "independent research" - Microsoft has a history of funding "independant researchers" itself, which coincidentally always come out in favour for Microsoft.
Clearly, when you compare the operating cost of a mainframe to the operating cost of a PC, it doesn't matter what OS you put on either system, the mainframe is going to cost more to own.
The research may have been conducted indepenently and fairly, but the conclusion it came to should have surprised nobody because the test they were running didn't put the two operating systems on a level playing field in the first place.
Try running both OSes on identical hardware and then see what kind of results you get...
Here's a link to the adjudication at the Advertising Standards Authority.
This is the same agency that has nailed Apple to the wall several times in the past.
Linux is as cheap as Windows. Windows is as cheap as Linux. They both cost ~one CD-R.
If you didn't read the website the advert pointed you at very carefully, you would be led to believe that Linux needed much more expensive hardware than Windows to even match capabilities; in fact, the study made no such claims.
I appear to have a blog. Odd.
I think Slashdot needs an "Obvious" tag.
Since it has been shown time after time (sorry Ms. Lauper) that EU != US, will MS get smacked here?o nsultants.realresultsmayvarybasedonuseandhardwarep urchases.notresponsibleforvirusesandothersoftwarem alfunctions.seeresellersfordetails'
Probably the only outcome would be a forced disclaimer like the fast talking legal-speak in car commercials: 'Whencomparedbetweendislikesystemsbypaidresearchc
I'm surprised Microsoft didn't go ahead and factor in an SCO license to the "cost" of Linux.
MS compared server 2003 on dual 900 MHz Xeons to Linux on an IBM z900 mainframe.
By my own similar method of comparison I can conclude Apples Mac OS X is 2000 times cheaper than MS server 2003*.
* Mac OS X running on a dual G5 Xserve. MS sever 2003 running on a quad quantum cyberdine systems X-9000 with gold plated tri-lithium cooled case and diamond studded cup holder.
If we had some of Microsoft's droids working for us, the open-source community in promoting open-source software, we may possibly have a big market share (as if we haven't got a growing one already).
Fine, Linux may be expensive in the short-term, i.e. upgrading and replacing some incompatible hardware, training staff, etc. but as ESR says, pay-per-seat Microsoft licensing fees are forever.Just my two pence.
no karma required .asp]
from http://www.asa.org.uk/ [ironically running on IIS with
-- - - - - -
Microsoft Ltd
Microsoft Campus
Thames Valley Park
Reading
Berkshire
RG6 1WG
Date: 25th August 2004
Media: Magazine
Sector: Computers and telecommunications
Agency: McCann Erickson
Public Complaints From: Liverpool, Surrey, Wiltshire
Complaint:
Objections to a specialist magazine advertisement, for a computer operating system, that was headed "WEIGHING THE COST OF LINUX VS. WINDOWS? LET'S REVIEW THE FACTS." A graph compared the cost (US$) per Megabit per second of "One Linux image running on two z900 mainframe CPUs" with "One Windows Server 2003 image running on two 900 MHz Intel Xeon CPUs". Underneath it stated "Linux was found to be over 10 times more expensive than Windows? Serverâ 2003 in a recent study ⦠audited by leading independent research analyst META Group, measured costs of Linux running on IBM's z900 mainframe for Windows-comparable functions of file serving and Web serving. The results showed that IBM z900 mainframe running Linux is much less capable and vastly more expensive than Windows Server 2003 as a platform for server consolidation.* To get the full study and other third-party findings, visit Microsoft.com/uk/getthefacts." The asterisk linked to a footnote that stated "Results may vary outside the United States â¦". The complainants challenged whether the comparison was misleading, because the operating systems were run on different hardware.
Codes Section: 3.1, 7.1, 18.1, 18.2, 18.3 (Ed 11)
Adjudication:
Complaints upheld
The advertisers said they intended the advertisement to compare competing file-serving set-ups that met the same needs and were intended for the same purposes. They said they had prepared the advertisement in response to an advertising campaign by IBM in which Linux running on an IBM mainframe was tested for file serving and web serving. They said their advertisement was based on results from a benchmark study and the advertisement informed the public of the results from that study about the relative performance and cost of one Linux image running on IBM's z900 mainframe CPUs and Windows Server 2003 image running on two 900MHz Xeon CPUs. The advertisers said the benchmark study was a network load performance test that was neither hardware specific nor operating system specific; they said the fact that the hardware and operating systems were different was irrelevant. They pointed out that the client PC did not determine the server used and that the server workloads were the same and were functionally equivalent. The advertisers explained that each server was tested to deal with increasing numbers of functions from client PCs. They said they took measurements from the client PCs to assess how fast the server would respond. They asserted that the study was audited by Meta, an independent consultancy firm, who reported that the study was a fair comparison.
The Authority noted the advertisers intended the advertisement to compare competing file serving set-ups that met the same needs and had the same function. It noted the study was audited and was a fair comparison of the operating systems on different hardware. The Authority considered, however, that because the advertisement stated " ⦠WEIGHING THE COST OF LINUX VS. WINDOWS ⦠Linux was found to be over 10 times more expensive than Windows ⦠" it implied the comparison was between Linux and Windows operating systems only, and not about the performance of operating systems on different hardware. It took expert advice. It understood that the study measured the cost of Linux, running on IBM's z900 mainframe, to a Windows Server 2003 image, running on 900 MHz Intel Xeon CPUs, and was therefore a comparison that demonstrated the price and performance between IBM zSeries hardware and Intel Xeon CPUs. It understood that the pri
In related news, usage of statistics is up 60%. After a fall last year of 40% on the usage of statistics this came as quite a surprise to the Internation Statistics Council (ISC).
"We are delighted with the increase of the usage of statistics, " said Chris Banana, the CEO of the ISC, "after the decline of previous year we have campained 150% more to encourage a 76% increase in statistics usage."
Independent inquiries with the goal of producing statistics have also risen 45% according to an independent study issued by the ISC.
"We are extremely grateful for the 5000% increate in funding we received from Microsoft in order to make this all possible", according to Chris.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
...and thinking, how much more stupid can it be? I saw the ad in a publication aimed at IT professionals (e-week, I think). Now granted, I know a lot of CIOs and other IT executive types might see it, but at least with the magazine I saw it in, I would think the target base would have enough tech savvy to know that a mainframe is going to cost more to run than a dual-xeon system.
Styrofoam IS biodegradable, you're just impatient!
In Windows 98 setup it said,"You simply plug in a USB device and your system automatically configures itself. You don't even have to restart your computer"
I've plugged in USB devices that prompted for a reboot.
Windows 98 setup also said that "Windows 98 is Year 2000 ready." But later Microsoft issued two patches to correct y2k problems in Windows 98.
... the Open-source marketing droids. If we managed to get some of Microsoft's marketing department staff into open-source, and have them promoting it, we would have a faster-growing marketshare than what we have now. The problem with Microsoft is that the so-called "Independent Studies" aren't independent, and they only look at the short-term expenses. Migrating to Linux may be expensive for a business, e.g. buying new hardware if the selection you have is incompatible, training staff to use the new system, etc. but if you look at the long term benefits, you'll find that costs are reduced dramatically. Windows IIS web servers are more likely to be defaced than Apache servers, although IIS is a small fraction of the servers on port 80 out of the entire internet! Security? Pah! The only reason that there is more security patches is that they are found and fixed quicker. I am using Mandrake 10.0 and I download the updates in bulk. There is a batch every to download and when I have finished there is no more to download for the rest of the week! Read http://opensource.org/, ESR's article Get The FUD in the Halloween documents section. Its just brilliant.
The real cost savings in running Linux on a zSeries mainframe comes from consolidating multiple server images under one box - either 16 servers running in native LPARs or 20+ under z/VM virtual machines.
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
I used to work in an advertising company. Oddly, the one that held the Microsoft account in 1995, when MS released Windows 95.
At that time, there were a few 'jinks' planned for the release that were not, strictly speaking, legal.
They knew that they'd get their wrists slapped, perhaps fined heavily.
The company take on it? They knew they may get caught up for it, and slapped hard. But these jinks would get the 'message' across in a spectacular way.
Nobody looked too hard at the slapdown and retractions, because they simply avoided the limelight. They had to look apologetic to the right people in private, and it was all forgotten.
But people at large simply remembered the original advertising stunt.
In this, it's the same thing again. They knew they'd be held up by the ASA, and torn down a strip, and forced to stop the advertisement.
However, they also know that the tech-unsure IT Managers and CIOs and so on will probably see it, and start saying "See, this Linux thing isn't so cheap after all! Stay with MS".
Advertising like that is meant to stay in the head along with the words 'survey' and masquerade as fact, so that in a future discussion that's on the subject, they won't say "I saw an advert that said Linux is more expensive than Windows", they'll say "I saw a SURVEY that showed how windows was cheaper to run than Linux".
Damage already done. Although the lie has been caught it's already spread, masquerading as fact.
They've earned their money, MS will pay any required fines (they've probably already been built into the pitch before it was released), and MS will be smiling all the way as the flung mud sticks, as it always does.
weren't they also the ones that slammed Apple for claiming the g5 was the fastest personal computer on earth?
Monstar L
They should have run the two operating systems on identical (PC) hardware. After all, the x86 platform is the original platform of Linux too, and probably the best supported. So this would be fair to both systems.
Thus, the hardware costs would be a draw and the cost comparison would actually be about software.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Douglas Adams described the Vogons as "not being above bribery and corruption in the same way that the sea is not above the clouds" (something like that - I'm working from memory). For some odd reason that phrase popped into my head as I read the article.
Another interesting bit:
"...The results showed that IBM z900 mainframe running Linux is much less capable and vastly more expensive than Windows Server 2003 as a platform for server consolidation.*" The ASA said the asterisk linked to a footnote that said: "Results may vary outside the United States".
I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean: is Linux less capable in Abu Dhabi than it is in the US? Are the results are reversed in the southern hemisphere? One might think that - if the study were conducted properly (big if) - the figures would remain proportional even after pricing for markets and conversion of currency (exchange rates).
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
advertisers calculate ~like this :
a lot of people are too lazy to do their own reserch
a lot of people are too dumb to do their own reserch
about the remained ~5%, we don't care
and the obvious conclusion - it don' matter what crap you tell them, make it sound nice and they'll buy
as about stigmatising MS for this .. i don' wanna say they are the nicest company, but ANY big company that ever did advertising, had at least one similar campaign
or think about this sample AFAIR, Carlsberg ran a spot saying "Carlsberg - probably the best beer in the world"
think about the uproar after a "Windows - probably the best OS in the world"
advertising is the real bad-guy here, not MS ... advertising takes away your freedom of choice by exploiting your lazyness or dumbness ... and they do it so good, most of people even enjoy it!
"There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
For all you Americans, this serves as an introduction. This here is what we call "regulation". It stops businesses being dicks by not bending over backwards to them at every opportunity. Our economy has not yet collapsed. Amazing, that.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
I have also been watching the WinXP-SP2 saga play out and it just seems like "business as usual" to me. I'm sure they will get it right in the end - just in time to start the whole process all over again with "LongHaul" - opps sorry, Longhorn.
Art Makers Just an excuse to show photos of naked women !!
DDDDDDuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!
Finally we have proof that government does watch TV.
Oh, right the Jackson thingy, well I guess now we have proof that the governemnt watches TV even when boobs are not on display.
Most government have heavy laws to try and help protect people from corporations. Yet if a person is brought in to court on so many charges in a time frame the court adds them all up hoping to get a better view of how the person is acting in (and hurting) the society. But giant corporations, they can get hauled to court constantly even over the same charge again and again and courts treat them all as seperate cases. Why not look at the big picture and see what these giants are doing to society and pass judgement trying to change something rather then trying to say something the corperations obviously aren't going to listen to?
*DrugCheese rants*
As my old math prof said:
Statistics are like a Bikini: showing interesting details but hiding the important stuff.
This is good for nothing. Ignore it or send it to the Customer Care Dept.
His lips are moving.
(Or, in this case, his fingers are typing.;)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I think you've got to look at common examples where the profit margin is thin, highly competitive, and tightly linked to actual operating overhead. If you an price web hosting, a Windows/IIS solution is more expensive than a Unix-based one. The cheapest hosts are always Unix-based, and ironically they tend to also be the most "reliable" (according to uptime....)
I'm sure there are examples of where the TCO of Windows on the same hardware is cheaper than something Unix-based, but for most serious work, Unix still rules.
Hell, Microsoft was guilty of false advertising when they released Microsoft Works.
considering my home server running windows cost $100 for the windows copy, and my linux server cost $0 for the software, hmm, I wonder whats cheaper
How is the system funded?
The ASA's work is funded by a small levy on display advertising and direct mail expenditure. In order for the ASA to preserve its independence from the advertising industry, a separate body, the Advertising Standards Board of Finance, collects this income. The only cost to consumers is the price of a stamp, or the time spent online, to send a complaint. The ASA's budget for the year 2003 is just over £4 million.
Now that Microsoft has been "found guilty" of misleading advertising, I wonder what their punishment will be? Life sentence at a hard labour camp? Confinement in a maximum security prison? Did the Gates family weep as the sentence was handed down?
Seriously, the UK Advertising Standards Authority have no authority, and there are likely no repercussions for Microsoft. Many whom have read those false claims and erroneous statements (and especially the poor saps that bought into it) will likely never hear the truth. The lies have been perpetrated and spread. It's like the old man who climbs to the top of a mountain and releases a bag of feathers to a mighty gust of wind. Those feathers are like lies: they spread to the four corners of the earth and are impossible to retract.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Man, its a good thing we don't have that here, or else what fun would political campaigns be?
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
The original reason for the research was to counter IBM's claims that you could reduce your TCO more by converting to Linux on a mainframe than to Windows on PC farms.
BOTH OF THEM WERE CORRECT.
In the IBM case, they were looking at it from the point of view that you already had mainframes, and you wanted to make them cheaper to maintain and keep up with modern software trends. They were correct.
In the Microsoft case, they were analyzing what it would take to convert over to mainframes or start from scratch. They were correct.
Where MS went horribly, horribly wrong was when their marketing folks took this, perfectly reasonable, research and referenced it in ads to the general computing community without any indication that it was a comparison relevant only to a particular niche market!
MS did some good research here, but the applied it unethically. Let's be clear on what we're coming down on them for!
Advertising has always played around the fringes of the truth, like system specs. But lately it's gone from stretching the truth to inventing it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Having said that, you'd be even better off if you could find a way to let your application run on a bunch of PC Linux boxes that together meet the scalability and reliability of z900 systems.
d ex.asp?id=252
Just to clear up some misconceptions about the mainframe:
Mainframes don't just get their power from having faster CPUs:
- The z/Series I/O architecture is far more efficient, requiring significantly less CPU overhead than x86 designs.
- IBM implements bleeding-edge tech into their hardware designs, things that are a good 2-5 years ahead of the consumer market. Of course, you wind up paying a premium for the priviledge...
- The most recent designs are geared toward grid computing and server-farm-in-a-box implementations. Sysplex and the coupling facility (think Beowulf clusters), shared kernels, and so on.
For an interesting overview of the benefits of using a z/Series mainframe as a server farm, I'd suggest reading this article -
http://eservercomputing.com/mainframe/articles/in
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
When I saw these TCO ads running on slashdot I complained to OSDN. They didn't deny the ads were misleading but didn't seem to want to stop running them. Their argument basically revolved around the fact that slashdot users wouldn't take the ads seriously anyway.
I stated at the time that I thought they would be in breach of UK advertising law.
You're joking right?
Perhaps a little more than a year ago, I personally made the assertion that Linux is great...even unmatched on the server side, especially for the cost involved but even without costs considered, I think Linux does an amazingly good job. But I also said Liunx is not ready for the desktop as I found it slow, unstable and barely usable.
What has changed? I have better hardware though that shouldn't have been the difference. We have newer X releases, new Open Office releases, GNOME wasn't even 2.0 at the time was it?
In any case, what has changed is largely my lazy ass. One day I just decided it was time to learn to use the thing as more than a server. And without many failures (I have this little digital camera for which no Linux support exists), I haven't run into any task I couldn't complete with satisfaction under (currently) Fedora Core 2. (please, I know there are other distros and KDE "Kicks De Ess!" and all that, but I'm comfortable with GNOME and FC2)
My point here is that at this point in time, I truly feel it's ready for prime time. More than that, I feel it's NEEDED prime time. The net has been getting a lot of attention for being unsafe for machines with a Microsoft OS. There are too many holes to plug even for experts in the field so I cannot imagine how helpless end users feel (though from my view they seem like helpless children getting f*cked up the ass and don't yet realize that this is immoral and wrong.)
The only thing that needs to change at this point in time are the minds of users.
But like the adoption of USB technology, it's a kind of chicken-egg thing. And ultimately, it was the makers of hardware that brought realization of the potential of USB. I suspect it will again be manufacturers (of PCs this time) that will bring realization of Linux's potential on the desktop.
It's ready. It's just a matter of whether we can get the hardware people out there to support Linux better.
I've seen the same ad. running on Slashdot in the recent past
MOD THE CHILD UP!
The real evil is the "lazyness or dumbness" you mention in your last sentence not advertising.
Since we don't teaching critical thinking skills in schools, we aren't equipped for democracy and freedom in general. We need to arm our population with the tools to recognize bs when it is shoveled on them.
"By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. Thank you, thank you. Just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day they'll take root. I don't know. You try. You do what you can. Kill yourselves. Seriously though, if you are, do. No really, there's no rationalisation for what you do, and you are Satan's little helpers, OK? Kill yourselves, seriously. You're the ruiner of all things good. Seriously, no, this is not a joke. "There's gonna be a joke coming..." There's no fucking joke coming, you are Satan's spawn, filling the world with bile and garbage, you are fucked and you are fucking us, kill yourselves, it's the only way to save your fucking soul. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show."
""You know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar, that's a big dollar, a lot of people are feeling that indignation, we've done research, huge market. He's doing a good thing." Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scumbags, quit putting a godamn dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!" ~ Bill Hicks
It is definitely false advertising. I charge way more than 10X for my Linux consulting.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Agreed, the only times linux gets on slashdot is when there's something new or positive to talk about. Why can't we do that too wi...? ooow...
Damn, that's either a real cheap mainframe, or Windows is a helluva lot more expensive than I remember it to be.
If it weren't for fog, the world would run at a really crappy framerate.
I mean, best of luck to the British for trying their best to keep advertisers honest. It's really the right attitude to have, but before pouring this much resources into this issue why not step back and think: it's freakin' advertising, fer fuck's sake! What do you expect? Hype and exaggeration are the bread-and-butter of marketing. They need to get your attention in a 20-second spot or a half-page ad or whatever. If they don't use half-naked women, they're going to make claims that cause you to do a double-take (although I think the half-naked women in computing ads concept has not yet been fully explored... hint, hint, Apple and Microsoft!)
If you're really so thick-headed that you need someone else to point this out to you, that Linux may not be more expensive because a competitor's ad claims it, or that the G5 may not necessarily be the world's fastest PC, then you've got much bigger personal issues to deal with.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Microsoft appeared on Slashdot when they released open source software. This was new, positive... and unexpected.
Slashdot anagrams to "Sad Sloth"
As long as Slashdot carries all the stories about the Monopoly that owns Linux trying to intentionally build incompatibilities into Linux to keep it from working with any other products. The stories about Linus dancing around shouting "Developers! Developers! Developers!". The stories about how Alan Cox was being flown around the world offering sweetheart deals to huge companies in order to keep them from considering alternatives.
Oh, and don't forget about the exposes of how the Business Software Alliance performs unannounced searches of businesses, shutting down running machines and having untrained flunkies search for any unlicensed copies of Linux. Don't forget to detail how receipts for the product don't seem to count as proof of purchase - an unlicensed copy of Linux (one sold for different hardware doesn't count!) can cost your company $25k or more in "damages", which thankfully can be waived if you just sign the exclusive software purchase deal for the next ten years and agree to periodic audits...
Also, how during the middle of a federal anti-trust lawsuit the people in charge of writing Linux wrote about using any means necessary to kill the competition.
Oh yeah, Linus and Linux don't seem to generate that kind of news.
Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe Microsoft has so many negative articles written about it because they actually do these things?
Come on all, didn't you see that M$ commercial where the 19 year old looking IT kid saved the company a million dollars and ran the entire IT department with 1 windows 2003 server. All the managements were looking at the kid like "wow, can I worship you". This kid saved the company and $$$. I don't think even Linus himself could save a company with 1 windows license.
Here in Norway, if a company claims that their product(s) are the BEST, the official watchdogs ("marketing authorities") may ask the company for actual proof of this.
:-D
:-)
One important aspect of this prosess is that you can't just footnote* something and then "it's up to the consumer to investigate". It is the first impression whithin a few seconds that counts! If the advertisment has the "ability to mislead" than the authorities may choose to ask for evidence.
And the authorities don't accept no "bullshit-document" or study funded by the company where conclusions have been drawn in advance.
If the "marketing authorities" aren't convinsed by the "evidence" presented to them, they effectivly forbid the company to state that their product(s) are the best.
Punishment for breaking the prohibition is large fines (e.g. 80.000$) that cannot be appealed at any court.
Norwegian consumer-laws are very good