Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Bribing Bloggers With Laptops
Slinky writes "According to at least six bloggers, Microsoft has been sending out free top-of-the-line laptops pre-loaded with Vista as a 'no strings attached gifts'. This 'reward' for their hard work on covering tech in general is coincidentally right before the launch of Vista to consumers. To be clear, these weren't loans, they were gifts, and they were top-of-the-line Acer Ferrari laptops. Microsoft blogger Long Zheng broke the silence over the source of the freebies."
That I'm a whore and can be bought. Please send my free laptop to:
Anonymous Coward
555 Mockingbird Lane
Anywhere, KS 51248
I look forward to "reviewing" Vista for you.
Since when is an "Acer Ferari" laptop a top of the line laptop. There are really only 2 types of top of the line laptops. One is an Apple MacBook Pro and its understandable why Microsoft wouldn't give that out. The other is the Thinkpad. No other PC laptop comes close to the thinkpad. Though its too bad they don't make a 15" 1600x1200 model anymore.
This is typical MS behaviour - entirely immoral and calculating ...
and where do I sign up?
Is it ethical? Probably not.
A new laptop to run Ubuntu on? Who cares?
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
There is also an Alternate Reality Game going on called The Vanishing Point. At least one blogger got a hint for this game along with the laptop. The game is set to conclude in Las Vegas during CES.
http://vanishingpointgame.com/
When Microsoft decides to bribe a blogger, they don't screw around. Damn...
I would be protesting this blatant attempt to reward the faithful if my mouth weren't watering so heavily.
(This may be a secondary ploy -- not only do they get to reward the faithful, but all their blogging enemies die off in saliva-related drownings...)
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
"No strings attached" to me is pretty clear. A bribe requires quid pro quo, that isn't the case.
Top of the line Acer's? Isn't that an oxymoron?
Politics, business, anything where money is involved has included bribes for about... well, since the inception of bribery... unless we are collecting a list of things MS is doing to be less than moral, or ethical, how is this news?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
what's with the obvious bias in this story? they aren't sending them to people to start blogging about Vista, they've sent them to bloggers who've been blogging about MS for a long time, like Long Zheng for example.
From the summary:
According to at least six bloggers, Microsoft has been sending out free top-of-the-line laptops pre-loaded with Vista as a 'no strings attached gifts'.
To me, that's a gift not a bribe. I can't remember the specifics, but I'm sure Apple did something similar a while ago. They're saying "thanks for the coverage", and that's that.
I'm happy over here with my OS X machines with Linux installs on the server side, and I still can't see a reason to be going after Microsoft for this. They got coverage, and they said thanks.
Cheers,
Ian
clever move microsoft! (not)
asking bloggers not to blog about a secret deal...
Microsoft's marketing money has been in full scale damage control over the past few months too. As the console world has forgotten about the 360 in the same way gamers did with the Dreamcast with the arrival of the PS3 and Wii systems, Microsoft has been flooding reviewers, bloggers, websites(ahem), basically anything with an open palm to pimp the floundering 360.
The most egregious example is the paid for Gears of War review scores. The game is getting slammed hard by even the Xbox's most diehard of supporters for poor network play and errors and jaggy graphics that don't look anything like the bullshit marketing shots for the game.
It's just part of the culture up there in Redmond.
Says who?
What "silence over the source of the laptops"? The bloggers mentioned in TFA all mentioned that the laptops were from Microsoft & AMD...
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Is The Plague working for Microsoft now?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
It's manipulative and perhaps a little dishonest, but companies have been doing this sort of thing for years.
Surely it's not suddenly newsworthy behavious just because MS have done it. If Google did something so underhand I'd see the problem, but this is what we expect from MS.
1) Ask for Vista laptop from MS
2) Write Wind0ze suxx0rs, Linux 1337 review
3) Format HD, install Linux
4) Profit!
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I don't see this as too big a deal. What's far worse is bloggers who don't disclose the fact they got the gift in any related blog posts. Bloggers aren't expected to have any standards, but those that disclose this important information when blogging about Vista gain credibility.
Developers: We can use your help.
Microsoft is giving out the laptops with the expectation that bloggers will sell them on eBay to create an impression that Windows Vista has a better resale value than either a Sony PS3 or Nintendo Wii. I'm waiting for them to send me a laptop so I can sell it on eBay.
Microsoft chooses to send laptops to a select number of bloggers who are inclined to review them favorably anyway.
Maybe one or two out of that number don't write straight-down-the-line praises of microsoft products. Most, however, find their enthusiasm for Microsoft somewhat re-enforced by the arrival of a beautiful, beautiful machine. And the bloggers don't write cood Microsoft copy because they have to. They do it because they want to.
As far as I can tell there's nothing grossly unethical about it. It's not like Microsoft is paying anyone to write anything they don't already write. But for want of a better word, 'bribery' still works.
But my hat is off to Microsoft anyway. It's just... brilliant. Damn them. Brilliant.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
sure beats the Pentium 133 16mb ram 1.0gb HDD laptop running debian with no X the FSF sent me.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
On one hand of course this doesn't look good on M$, "bribing bloggers" like this. That's the obvious part.
The other part, I wonder if this doesn't just make a lot of bloggers start being even more pro-microsoft in the hope of a little something might fall off. Let's face it you really have to have a lot of visitors to make the adsense money add up to what you can sell such a laptop for on ebay.
Sounds like smart advertising to me. You want those early adopters? Get the bloggers buzzing. If you question the integrity of a particular blogger then stop reading them. If anything MS is brave to do this. They must really believe that their product will generate a buzz if these bloggers get their hands on them. I don't hear you complaining about all the bloggers who are crapping on Vista even though they are only reviewing screenshots or Beta releases.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I'm still waiting for my free samples for reviewing porn movies. Shame on you, porn industry: Microsoft has overtaken you in innovation for the first time.
All of the "blogs" about how great Vista and the Zune are all of the sudden make a ton of sense...
blah blah blah
How is this in the least bit immoral? Really, and don't give me any BS about a bribe, or that it is incentive to speak good about MS. If someone blogs about how great MS is in order to receive a laptop that's on their morals and ethics, not MS's. I'm seriously having a hard time seeing how this is immoral.
There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think. -Victor Hugo
But do they run Linux?
There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think. -Victor Hugo
...so this is nothing new. See Enterprise 128. We might not have ported our games onto it without this freebie, as there were many other competing platforms back then. Wikipedia says it's now "an extraordinarily collectible item in Europe", which seems very unlikely, but reply to this post if you want to offer huge sums of money.
The Open source crowd can't really object, because they've been giving away free copies for years.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
It's a small price to pay to get people to do your dirty work for you, and probably more effective, since these sites masquerade as impartial news sources.
....Slashdot?)
I'm sure Microsoft does this with bloggers that cover the XBox 360 / bash the PS3. (Engadget, Kotaku, Gizmodo,
A company giving away freebies to impress the media and generate buzz? No ....
It looks like Microsoft is trying to promote Vista and would like prominent bloggers to have access to it in order to write about it on their websites. No different from record labels sending promos to music journalists, or game companies sending software to reviewers.
How is this "bribing?"
"Sufferin' succotash."
You have to know who those influencial bloggers really are! No need wasting precious laptops on weak, uninfluencial bloggers and bloggettes!
See buzzlogic.com. Weep. Or gnash your teeth and download another copy of knoppix.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Microsoft? Giving out Ferrari's? I'm sold! Now where are the keys?
Giving out free stuff to people who write reviews on high-profile sites has been a common practice for hardware makers for some while, I think. This may be the first I've heard of a _software_ maker giving out _hardware_ as a freebie, but maybe they just wanted to be sure Vista runs flawlessly and didn't want to chance that with the recipients' extant hardware. And this is *not* the first I've heard of a manufacturer of one product sending a complementary product along with, e.g., motherboard manufacturers have been known to send RAM with their mainboard so that the reviewer will have the right kind of RAM so they can use the motherboard without spending money. The only difference here is that it's hardware and software, instead of hardware and hardware. And of course that MS is a monopoly, but if that has any bearing on this particular practice, I am not aware of it. (If they were giving out free laptops with purchase of Vista in order to break into the laptop market, _that_ would be a serious ethical and legal problem. But that's not what's going on here.)
If there were any strings attached, then there would be an ethical issue, of course, but otherwise I don't see a problem, or at least not a qualitatively larger problem than you have when AMD sends a free motherboard and CPU to a hardware review site, or SanDisk sends them a free USB key, or whatever.
Of course if the blogger then posts a review of Vista they should disclose that they got it as a freebie. Review sites typically do that, e.g. with a statement at the end of the review like "Review hardware provided by [Manufacturer's Name]". In this case it would be review hardware and software, but otherwise the same sort of statement would do fine, I should think.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
corrupting the free market. Sure, MS is free to give, bloggers free to accept, and the public is free to keep right on paying for it.
Aren't we just so damned proud of good old fashioned American ingenuity?
so, when I get the laptop, the first thing I do is format the HDD and load FreeBSD, a real operating system, on it. Haha! Thanks for the hardware though.
This is not really an MS news story. It's really about the influence and credibility of bloggers.
Why it's not about MS -- MS is sending these out for two reasons. One, they want to establish good will... that's not illegal or unethical. They aren't asking the recipients to hide where they got the gift from. They're not attaching any requirements to the gifts. It's a gift. It's ok. Two, MS knows that Vista needs high end hardware to run well and they know that many bloggers aren't going to invest in the hardware to run early reviews... so in order to get reviews about real Vista features and not how slow it is and how much it costs MS is giving the laptops away. It's a smart business decision.
Can bloggers measure up? - So... MS sends these laptops to bloggers because bloggers have readers and readers make decisions based on the sources they trust. MS has recognized that bloggers have sway in the market, they're for real... they mean something now. That's a plus for blogging.
The test for bloggers is whether or not they'll reveal a potential conflict of interests or reject the gift. Journalists and corporations have policies about these things... do bloggers have the integrity to handle this gift without the appearance of compromise. That's the test and that's what this is really about.
I would consider participating, especially since I do not have any machines running Linux at this time and would see this as a useful learning experience.
This sig seemed like a good idea at the time....
The guys blogging about this thing say that the laptops are coming from AMD...? and yet it's MS that's trying to "bribe".
A bribe requires quid pro quo. Everyone is agreeing that there is none here -- bloggers who have been writing about MS are getting a machine that they can blog about Vista from. New hardware sporting something current enough to run the newest OS from redmond.
there is no bribe here. there is an ethical issue for the bloggers who receive them, but it's not a big one. Disclose that you received it and enjoy... or return it.
you mean other than the DRM, TC, and the 95 year government granted copyright monopoly.
I certainly could not keep the laptop if Microsoft give it to me. I can accept typical convention junk (pens, key chains, and other novelty items) or perhaps a meal, but certainly not a laptop. My employer's policy (a Fortune-200 company):
Never solicit or accept money, loans, credits or prejudicial discounts, gifts, entertainment, favors or services from our present or potential suppliers that might influence or appear to influence your decisions.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
you obviously weren't around then
when did 133 laptops have 1.0 g hard drives. The debian stallman edition 133mhz laptops they sent out had and 80 gig with a 160 external scssi that rocked!
and it had windows... emacs did windows way before X!
n00b!
A free laptop that downscales and then reupscales all "unprotected" high quality signals that pass through it? Just to cover the mere possibility that you didn't pay for something? A laptop designed to detect the slightest analog voltage fluctuations, and inject crap bits into the system to make it crash, just in case you attach an alligator clip to your sound card to get free music? Or with remotely destructible device drivers that are disabled by Microsoft once the RIAA learns about a driver vulnerability that allows leakage of "protected content"? No thanks.
Someone should get the list of developers who got free laptops, so we can send them Knoppix CDs as "no strings attached gifts". These laptops already need rescuing.
Since Vista might not run all that well on some of these folks old A21M Thinkpads or whatever, sending out CDs might be a bit risky. Especially given the general flakiness of laptop hardware. Getting a harvest of blogger comments about how Vista refused to install or installed, but ate six directories containing a new novel is really a dubious marketing investment. Since Microsoft is awash in profts from its unchecked monopoly practices, why not give away laptops along with the OS?
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Buying public sentiment? Don't tell me Karl Rove is controlling Bill Gates, too.
Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't send them free wombats.
The best thing about the law of reciprocity is that it still applies even if you may already despise the source of the gift.
CNET Reviews don't agree that Ferrari laptops are top of the line. What's Microsoft up to? Anyone missing any underpants?
Like the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) except... its One Laptop per BlogWhore (OLPBW).
Kinda the same.
So then, I expect Microsoft will be sending Peter Gutman a free laptop for all his good work covering Vista.
As a non-blogger with one of these "Top of the Line" laptops (yes a Ferrari 5002) I can tell you it makes not a lick of difference whether you use today's top of the line (Ferrari 5002) or yesterday's (Ferrari 4005wlmi) I have both (one is a business laptop, the other is for games and other personal use) and I can tell you Vista Ultimate runs god-awful slow on both, and trashed the XP partition on both. This has been the case since Pre-Beta 1, and continues to be the case with RC2. Until such time as MS publishes an article telling me how I can either:
.cab's, .inf's, etc...)
A) Dual boot my existing XP partition
-or-
B) Use applications and drivers built for XP under Vista (and no, that "application compatability wizard" doesn't do jack for installation files,
I don't see how all this hemming and hawing about them giving out laptops makes one corn-kernel of difference in this turd of an OS.
Your friendly neighborhood non-blogger man
if Microsoft were to meet your standards, they would have sent the bloggers comp copies of Vista -- that would be their "review unit." These were not "review units." These were explicitly classified as gifts, with no strings attached.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Apparently many of the previous posters don't realize how the business world works, crying foul and exclaiming how evil microsoft is to "bribe" the bloggers.
Dose of reality, it's a common business tactic to send out free product. Microsoft can either spend millions on normal advertisement (which I'm sure they are doing to do as well) or send out about $15k worth of hardware to a few bloggers who could potentially reach millions of consumers.
Think about it... most of you should be smart enough to figure it out.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
I wonder if Acer will stop using FAT32 as their default filesystem with Vista. As of at least a few months back, new WinXP machines (at least laptops) still came with FAT32 and not NTFS.
Seriously, WTF?
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Maybe they just wanted to say "thank you"?
That's becoming common of Microsoft, for example they gave a free copy of Vista Ultimate to every person who submitted at least one bugreport from Beta or RC Vista. I mean, a copy of an expensive OS just for submitting one bug! Although think that it's a downloaded version and not the nice boxed edition...
This is bribery, pure and simple. Every industry does it in some form or another. If MS had sent them a copy of Vista with no hardware, that's understandable. Everyone sends out free samples to reviewers in the hopes that they will review it. However, the "free laptop" is a bribe.
You would say "oh yes as long as they disclose that they received a free laptop I'm okay with that." What if every reviewer got a laptop? And what would motivate a reviewer to disclose this information, when it would only hurt their credibility, and thus, their paycheck?
No, this is a problem. No company should have the opportunity to buy the press. We just got the blog revolution started and already the corporations are trying to subvert it with money. I would accept nothing less than evey blogger returning the laptop and declaring in their blog that they "do not except gifts from the companies that they review. It damages a blogger's credibility and creates a bias, and is therefore unethical."
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
several nice gifts over the last couple years for BETA testing Live Messenger and OneCare. When you compare my contribution and gifts on a scale versus the work some of these bloggers have done, I don't really see the issue. I know we have to hate everything MS does (and I'm as guilt as anyone around here sometimes), but this doesn't really seem all that evil to me.
Here's the plan:
1) Send free laptops pre-loaded with Vista
2) Exploit well known security issues in Vista and hack into the machines.
3) Change the blogs just before publication to praise Linux and dis Vista
4) Profit !
But unless these guys are doing a blog for their employers, that comment has no relevance.
...of something I saw happening in Bourke Street in Melbourne one day several years back.
There was a station wagon parked opposite Myers full of cans of Dr. Pepper. I'm told it's popular in America, but Australians can't stand it...it became discontinued here very quickly.
Anywayz, the moral of the story is that these people with the cans were trying to sell it to passersby, and nobody would buy it, because as I said over here everyone hates it. When it became clear to the people trying to sell the cans that passersby wouldn't buy the cans, the people selling them instead began trying to give them away.
The way I see it, this divides the computer-writing bloggers into four basic camps:
1. Pro-Microsoft, got a laptop
2. Pro-Microsoft, didn't get a laptop
3. Anti-Microsoft, got a laptop
4. Anti-Microsoft, didn't get a laptop
The gift effectively marginalizes group 1 -- people will say, "Sure, you say that, but you've been bribed." And it'll partly marginalize group 2, as people will suspect them of being bribed and just not admitting it.
Conversely, it empowers group 3. If they're getting 'bribes' and still criticizing Microsoft? Well, gosh, they must be of sterling moral fibre, or something.
Group 4 would be split -- there will be those who increase their criticism out of either bitterness or a sense of moral outrage, just as there might be those who tone down their criticisms out of a vague hope of getting some future handout. Indeed, there will probably be more people writing about it, period.
No, it doesn't make sense as a bribe. Looking at it as a "thank you" or at worst an inexpensive play for publicity (peanuts compared to a TV ad) makes far more sense.
A few weeks ago Microsoft called a meeting for bloggers at their Redmond Campus. Bill walks into the meeting room and sees that every blogger that showed up was using a Mac laptop. Well I guess he didn't like that, so now he decides to send out free laptops to fix things. Trouble is, it's probably going to take more than a free laptop to make them switch back.
...local grocers have been reported to be handing out free samples of cheese. "Coincidentally" these "no-strings-attached" cheese samples have been handed out specifically to people milling about the cheese counter, who are more likely to buy cheese than the average grocery shopper. While not expressly illegal, the psychological effect of getting free cheese is well documented, making this brazen ploy on the part of grocers highly ethically questionable.
Here's another site that got the bribe...
9 678
http://forums.winxpcentral.com/showthread.php?t=1
But he DOES promise to write a non ass-kissing review, despite openly admitting being biased.
How ya liking your new laptop, buddy...
A bribe is a bribe. And I wouldn't put it past Apple to do the same thing, but we're not talking about Apple now, are we? (and yes, there is plenty to be said about Apple as well...)
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
(can I have my laptop now?)
Forward this Slashdot link to 9 other people and you too will receive a free laptop from Microsoft.
...reviewer gets sample. OMG. Stop teh presses. If for some unknown reason your under the belief that all reviews of products on the Internet are unbiased and have no relation at all to receiving something from the people who made the product, you need a serious reality check.
In other late breaking news...politicians sometimes lie.
Ah yes, "free". And did the 1099 forms arrive with it, or will they be sent out by the deadline of Jan. 31?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
No SUSE?
"If your parents never had children, chances are you wonât either." -Dick Cavett
In other "news":
The movie industry sends out DVD copies of films for film ciritcs.
The music industry sends out CDs to music critics.
Most industries send out materials for reviews. They call it "promos"... be sure to look it up.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
however, the tos can be changed at any time and I have heard its going to be changed so they cannot use their laptops for anything other than microsoft products and they cannot post anything anti-microsoft in their blogs.
Perhaps the recipients of these "gifts", after posting their reviews, could auction them off and donate the proceeds to charity?
Hehe yeh, right.
Well, reportedly, every single Blogger showed up with a Macbook . As you might expect, this apparently floored Gates.
Now, MacroSuck(tm) sends out Winblows laptops to....?
Coincidence? I think not.
They were not gifts either. I beleive the correct term is BRIBES!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
MS is letting the flashiness of their OS speak for itself. I've been using vista RTM for a while now, and I've got to say it's really nice. The built in speech recognition in particular is amazing, allowing one to dictate as if he was speaking to a real person. After a few days of training, I can read the declaration of independence, a document containing hundreds of archaic words I hadn't trained the system on, at faster than normal speed, with nearly 100% accuracy. Vista has hundreds of other updates which are by and large really nice, and I would say that it's MS' best OS yet ...
Except for it's absolutely outrageous kowtowing to content providers. The fact that vista requires hardware that 99.9% of the market does not own to view premium content at it's native resolution is the quintessential dealbreaker for me. MS has completely abandoned the consumers' interest with this release and is blatantly selling out to the terrified MPAA and RIAA, as well as other content providers. Vista is a resource hog, and will drastically and unnecessarily increase hardware costs across the board, but particularly for video card manufacturers (What? You didn't want 2-3 of your Pixel shader pipelines devoted to useless en/decryption ? Too bad! Or those of you who appreciated the unified driver models, say goodbye to that.) If I want to watch a bluray video on my top of the line HD-capable system, who is Microsoft to tell me to buy a new monitor which will actively conspire against me?
Governments must not ever implement windows vista, due to its enforcement of so called "tilt bits" which will disable the system if it is not within certain prescribed limits. This is to detect and prevent people tinkering with their systems' insides. These small abberations are normal, and the ability of electronic hardware to withstand them is one of the reasons that it is so robust these days. A small thing like an intentional power surge has the potential to set off these tilt bits and disable any system running Vista.
This schizophrenic tenancy for products we own to be controlled by an external master is criminal and should not be tolerated by anyone who values freedom. I stole Vista in order to test it, and its beauty and usefulness scares me very much. I had hoped that MS would screw up like they usually do, and no one would buy vista. Once most people are using vista, computer users are screwed badly. The funny thing is that they have no one to blame but themselves, for not knowing that it is a wold in sheep's clothing. I'd urge anyone who has any possibility of using vista, ESPECIALLY those who have sway over it's use in the workplace to read this document by Computer Scientist Peter Guttmann, A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. It's a great read, and is ablolutely infurating. Happy new years, Everybody
Think of the poor bloggers who got a lap dance from Ballmer!
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
...does it run Linux?
microsoft bloggers are the pets of their corporation who are WILLING to actually purchase microsoft products and promote the company. why give away vista to those people who *would* pay for it?
instead, give it to the pirates, because they wouldn't pay for it in the first place and they are going to get it anyway. that way, you maximize profits because you get the bucks from the bloggers.
The only ethical reviewing is done by a system such as Consumer Reports uses. They pay full price retail at a random store for the product under review, then conduct extensive real-world tests, and they also do not accept ads for their magazine or website. This applies to released products. That some game or software or entertainment companies do the opposite, just give away stuff, doesn't matter, it is still completely sleazy from sleazy people then and unethical as all get out and you won't get an honest opinion, it is tainted, or has a high probability of being tainted. This is similar to scientific peer review, they have to be scrupulous to disclose industry ties/conflicts, and that's because the community recognizes that the potential for bias is there.
Unreleased products where they can be considered betas, no problem getting a sample loaner model, I have done it myself in a biz I was in before, critiquing proposed products. But, no money was received, nor were any products transferred for ownership, just a normal review process that both the product and the written review went back only to the manufacturer and wasn't for publication.
I have an Acer laptop and personally wouldn't be that impressed with one as a gift - if I could I would return mine. Looks like Microsoft is on a budget !
If Apple did this would there be the same waling, moaning and gnashing of teeth? Somehow I doubt it.
tch, this is the way Main Stream Media work; I thought the blogosphere was above this ... fluffing.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
How many are now running another OS?
Get your tagline off my lawn.
ooooh shiny stuff, free ooooh oooh good, so good, gimme gimme
First thing the bloggers did upon receiving their gift, was to low-format the harddrive and install Ubuntu Dapper Drake.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
Usually record labels send me CD-Rs. If there is a sticker with artists name i feel lucky. Book publishers send me pre-books in green or white covers, text before spell-check. Sometimes they do send me final editions, well, with big black stamps "Not for sale" on the cover and inside, in case i forgot about my duties. You really can't compare this to giving away laptops.
I live in Poland, BTW, but don't think it's any different elswhere .
This Is Not a Sig
For what it's worth, I'm giving away a free game. Just check out www.bklovr.com for DL and screenshots. Granted it's not as sexy as a free laptop, and I'm making it available to everyone and not just bloggers, but hey - at least it's free :-)
I finally found the correct post to reply to.
... write what they like. Paul Thurrott is Pro Microsoft. Daniel Eran is Anti-Microsoft. Tons of other people are in a fuzzy zone in between.
... and gets ... TWO laptops! "Look, he's neutral!"
"...person in a position of trust"
These are bloggers, not classical journalists. Bloggers
A blogger starts out "randomly typing things" because it's fun. Then he randomly types three-ish blog posts Pro-Microsoft... and look! A Laptop appears! That's neat. Now he's a Semi-Professional tech consultant. He'd better look into filing Schedule C with his tax return.
Suppose a savvy blogger writes posts for BOTH MS and APPLE
I think everyone is getting hung up because they're assuming all members of the class of Blogger_Laptop are somehow adhering to the code of a NY Times Journalist - except they're not working for the NY Times.
I don't expect anyone short of a world-class product safety specialist to exhaustively document the flaws of anything. Therefore, the entire rest of the spectrum is possible, from exhaustive praise, to incoherent ramblings.
I say "Let'Em Have Laptops!" They can spend their lives blogging for free... or they can morph into "allied consultants".
If someone wants to change categories and be "certified" as some brand of stringent non-biased review... then deal with that separately.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
- does it run Linux?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of bribes!
In capitalist America, Microsoft laptops your blog!
I, for one, welcome our bribe-emitting overlords.
I would not have any issue taking a Laptop for free from Microsoft. I would however dig into the fine print to see if there is some legal lock on that asset to Vista and if not, would almost immediately wipe the drive and load up my current flavor of Fedora Core 5 or whatever is current.
No sir; I have no qualms, no shame, etc... I'm not proud... Acer laptop???... Not the toughest in the planet but definitely something to bang around on. Linux would more than likely scream on it!
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Very interesting and agreeable post, except for this:
;) ).
"Going back to Ethics 101, this is (however subtly) acting against the best interest of society, and therefore unethical."
Since when is utilitarianism necessarily == to ethical behaviour? Utilitarianism is but one of many ethical doctrines (and personally, I find Kant's Metaphysics of Morals more compelling). For example, I'm sure it is in the 'best interest of society' to murder someone if their body holds the cure to cancer but it is quite far from cut and dry if anyone has the right to murder in the name that net benefit cure to society (net benefit because not everyone necessarily benefits from that murder esp. the person in question
Where do I post a blog? I'll say whatever they tell me to because I need another wireless X station to connect to my Solaris x86 server.
what are the chances that MS will spring for a new mac book pro for me? i want a black one.
Wow, Microsoft is giving out free products to influential bloggers/"reporters" right before a product launch. Cause, you know, this is an unheard of and inexplicable practice and all. I hope the Associated Press breaks this story wide open. And yes, I'm being sarcastic.
Some days I'm really glad I don't actually pay to read Slashdot.
I won't thank you for a Vista'd laptop. But if anyone is handing out Charisma Carpenters I'll do my very very best to give a good review. Promise.
I wander why CmdrTaco didn't get one...
and no, I'm not talking about an Acer laptop.
I think that if it's disclosed, and the blogger continues to write, his bias will become pretty clear and whatever change he makes will be clear too.
:-).
Many, many years ago, I ran an anti-Microsoft web site and Microsoft contacted me and sent me Windows NT 4.0. It was less bad than Windows95, but it didn't change my opinion and my site remained as it was. They just told me that they wanted me to have their latest stuff, so that I could write honestly about it. I respeted that.
Truthfully, I think Microsoft did this to solve a curious little problem. Most bloggers aren't rich, and they're going to try and run Windows Vista on a computer that can barely run XP. So give them a gift, so they can run Vista the way it was meant to be run.
To amplify this a bit, I have a Windows PC right next to my PowerBook that's less than six months old. I ran the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor on it and it sort of wimpered and slunk off with a "Vista Basic once you upgrade it to 1GB RAM from 512MB" recommendation. It's blazing fast running XP, with a 2.8ghz Pentium IV. An Apple computer of the same vintage would have no trouble at all running Tiger or Leopard.
I think most bloggers are not going to be influenced by the gifts per se, but they will be nicer about Vista since they have a machine on which it will run well, which they might well otherwise not be able to obtain.
I'm not sure if that's good or bad, fair or unfair. After all, most people on the ground nowadays are buying $799 laptops that do not have a prayer of running Vista. But truthfully, I think there's enough information about Vista's performance out there for people to be able to make up their own minds, and so Microsoft's efforts will have little genuine impact.
I'm glad the bloggers will at least get some cool free stuff. We all like that. It's a pity that Apple's legendary customer loyalty makes steps like this entirely superflurous for the likes of me who would not mind a free MacBook Pro at all
D
Now as it happens I really would like a copy of Vista to play around with for research for future columns but I'm going to have to pony up the $399 and buy a copy when it comes out end of January since my free laptop never showed up.
Oh well. Maybe someday The Man will think I'm worth bribing.
Who cares? This is absurdly common in just about every industry that gets reviewed, and just because it is the dreaded "M$" everyone gets to throw in their $.02.
... here's your free laptop, complete with Windows Vista and an HD-DVD drive. Now try actually *playing* some HD content through it. Muahahahaha!
Love, Bill.
If it was just a nice thing MS did, they would have let everybody know about it, and the bloggers would have let everybody know. That's not how it worked, because with full disclosure the value of the influence MS had bought would have plummeted. I mean, what would your reaction be, reading a blogpost that said, "I received a megabucks laptop from Microsoft, just for being cute." Followed by a post that said, "By the way, Vista is the snake's eyebrows." You'd believe every word. Not.
Whether it is a bribe or not-so-shady marketing is not a measure of the value, it's whether there are strings attached. However, shipping their own product is appropriate, shipping the laptop may not be a bribe outright, but it certainly is questionable.
If the recipient takes the gift talks about how shitty MS and Vista are, and MS can't take back their gift, it's not really a bribe. There is a logical assumption to make that such gifts would be less likely to occur if the reviewer doesn't do good by MS, and this opens the door to question bundling the laptop, but it technically remains not a bribe.
If the gift was contingent on a good review, it is certainly a bribe.
Now it becomes questionable because any good press coming from those who received laptops comes from those with a conflict of interest. If it had just been a free copy of Vista, and they didn't like it, they wouldn't be motivated to lie because all they have to gain are more free copies of a product they don't like. However by linking a laptop in, the reviewers may be inclined to look good to MS in the hopes of getting the laptops, even if they blow away the software on it after review because they truly thinks it sucks.
If the laptop vendor had sent the laptop, no big deal. After all, the reviewer only has to kiss ass of his favorite sample-providing vendor because the other products are inferior and he doesn't care.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
They'll probably have to reflect these laptops as income on their taxes. Odds are each free laptop will cost them about a grand in additional taxes.
But, hey, it's a Microsoft laptop - there's bound to be something extra you didn't count on having to pay for.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Unless a blogger clearly states that they were given a laptop from Microsoft - that's unethical Pay For Say - if they are writing about Microsoft. If they state that they got a laptop from Microsoft and then reviewed a Microsoft product and spoke highly about the product or hid deficiencies then that's unethical Pay For Say. Consumers Reports magazine never accepts products free of charge - they always buy them from retailers.
Unfortunately Digital Post Production recently were given a laptop by Apple. Did the laptop receive an appropriate review? The review was a gushing, salivatory ... god its wonderful type of review. They should have never taken anything from Apple considering the position that they are trying to claim on the web.
Greed is not good.
Some of the replies here should be put on DVD and sold as a comedy collection. I can't believe there are this many idiots in the world who think that giving away some of your product is a new idea and Microsoft, being the Evil Empire that they are, is the first to do it.
Kids, I've got a news flash for you. This sort of thing has been going on since manufacturers of dehydrated food sent free samples to Moses while he and the Jews were crossing the Sinai. There is not one industry on this planet that isn't guilty of doing the same thing Microsoft is doing, and most have done it *long* before Microsoft ever entered the picture.
The only reason this story made it to Slashdot is because its a slow news week and this can be turned in to an anti-Microsoft story. If it were Apple or a Linux company doing it, it would be rejoyced as the greatest new marketing technique since the invention of sex.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Popular bloggers are in a position of trust. People read their blogs expecting an honest opinion. The fact that Microsoft bothered to send them these freebies means that they have enough influence where things like journalistic integrity matter.
I love the guy's cheesy argument in the story link. "Remember bloggers are given a choice which includes giving the machine back when they're done with it. Keeping the unit is a decision made solely by the bloggers receiving the computers."
Apparently, at least that one blogger bought an apple laptop and actually wrote an open letter to microsoft on it.
Thanks to the parent poster for actually giving the real background to this story so I could do this googling!
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
"Update 7: I could update this for as long as people make false accusations. Over at Barb Bowman's blog, people are accusing her of not disclosing the fact she got it from Microsoft, when in fact she did. I quote, 'The nice folks at AMD recently provided an Acer Ferrari 5000'. These review PCs were given out by Microsoft and AMD, which in return could be credited to either of them."
Is this guy a fucking idiot? People are accusing her of not disclosing she got it from MS...and he "disproves" them by showing a quote from her in which she doesn't mention MS.
Quick lesson in logic for you, Zheng: if you had said "Over at Barb Bowman's blog, people are accusing her of not disclosing the fact she got it from Microsoft or AMD" then your counterexample would be sufficient to disprove the claim.
This is pretty damming and from TFA these are then names:
Brandon LeBlanc
Scott Beale
Barb Bowman
Mauricio Freitas
Mitch Denny
Zen Heavengames
The question MS is going to face in 2007:
Why upgrade?
Prepare yourself to some heavy muscle flexing from our friends in Redmond to literally
"introduce" their OS in 2007.
Expect quick and rapid degradation of service and security patch support of Windows XP and lot's a discounts and free stuff to those who follow carrot.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
This is an interesting development! Back in the 1990s, you had to be reviewer with a "significant" tech publication to get this sort of booty. Now bloggers get it and PC Mag reporters don't? :-)
Check this ...
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_c ost.txt
It should be a main article though.
Prof(Miss) A Mani CU, ASL, AMS, ISRS, CLC, CMS, IEEE HomePage: http://www.logicamani.in Blog: http://logicamani.blogs
... like asking theis laptops back:
b ack
http://marshallk.com/microsoft-wants-its-laptops-
But ultimately, MS's tactic has worked. Whether or not many bloggers accept and/or write about these laptops, we're all talking about MS and Vista right here. As a form of advertising, those laptops were a pretty good investment!
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Professor UNIX, it is nothing like an iPod & speakers, why deal with the analogy. Why not justrdeal with the facts of this case.
Let's look at what is going on in my humble opinion. Folks, Microsoft is not just shipping some little tiny application or patch to the OS. They are shipping a brand new operating system that has significant requirements for hardware. You can't just drop vista on you Pentium 2 or old AMD CPU with 256MB. It behaves like a "dog" trust me I have been running the RC1 on minimum hardware and it isn't pretty. Comparing what open source companies do is also not a fair comparison, because they are not multiply billion dollar companies, they are too small to know better. The magazine and website professionals (paid reviewers, not free time bloggers) get samples sent to them all the time, because if you don't send the right hardware for the job you won't get a review of the product, you just get an announcement that "it's coming out..." Windows Vista is not Linux or UNIX it you cant just recompile the OS to run on the CPU in the clock radio or that old P2 CPU your not using right now. You need cutting edge graphics hardware, a good monitor, 100Gig HD, 512MB RAM (1Gig is better), and a kicker for a CPU... do you have that kind of hardware around that you can allocate to do a review of Windows Vista? I doubt it!
Comparing Microsoft's laptop-gate to how the music industry works is absurd and even the assumptions folks are making about the music industry are uninformed fancy. And even the gaming industry will send a reviewer the game station if the reviewer doesn't have the required hardware.
Do you think that the review would buy a two grand laptop to do a review of a Windows Vista? No, they might put it on a 3rd rate box they have, but if you could get the OS to install it would run badly and the review would reflect this. The only reasonable thing is to send hardware that is compatible and ask that they give Windows Vista a fair review. Why ask for the laptop back? When was the last time you got back something that you lent out, or at least on time without having to ask? It is human nature to forget to return something. What would happen if the reviewer broke it? Should M$ sue them for the value?
What happened here is that some bloggers were given VIP status by Microsoft marketing. Elevating an "ordinary smuck" to a status they are not used to they reacted badly. They are not used to receiving expensive packages so that they can give something a fair shake. Come on folks most geeks spend more then $2,000/year at Starbuck! You really need to get some perspective and think beyond your level of experience. Microsoft spent six-billion dollars to develop Windows Vista, what is a couple more hundred grand more to get a fair review from some popular bloggers. I would hope, but obviously it hasn't happened, that the reviewer would simply say Microsoft sent me a laptop with Windows Vista on it, this is because it has hardware requirements, after I review it I feel I should return the laptop, or I will donate it to..." The responsibility is on the recipient not on Microsoft who are just following SOP and are including a couple of newbie's. I think reviewers have enough integrity to give fair reviews, you can usually spot the ones that don't, but people in situations they are not comfortable in will usually react badly. In this case, I would think that the folks that started this furrier thought their integrity was being tested. Since they aren't sure of there integrity they lashes out, the other folks that are carrying the storm forward are probably either jealous (Where is my free laptop). Or, are Microsoft haters anyway (It's not good to be a hater!), or are people that don't understand how the industry works. IMHO: There really is not story hear, just misunderstanding and jealousy.
An ACER $2K laptop really isn't that much of a bribe, my past experience is their products has never been good. But that is another topic. CloneZero
You can fool yourself into thinking that such a thing is a "promo".
People with the most basic level of decency and morals know that such a thing is never strings free.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
MS does not make laptops.
If MS wants its products reviewed they can send a DVD, or they could lend you a machine with their wares installed for a couple of months.
In my current job I would have to report such a present and most likely would be told to return it, in many industries it would be illegal to give such "gifts".
The immorality of such actions is beyond question, if it is a widespread practice does not make it any better.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
People with the most basic level of decency and morals know that such a thing is never strings free.
Think what you want but I see it as people who lack self respect and self control who are swayed by shiny trinkets. If you'd feel a need for "repayment" of such a promotional item than you definitely do not have the outlook it takes to be a serious critic. I've been given promos in the past for review and the amount of extra crap that came with them never swayed me.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.