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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."
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.
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.
With no strings attached, this is not a bribe. It is a calculated risk:
1. Reviewers will be far less likely to criticize Vista's complex pricing structure not having had to personally invest energy into weighing the cost/benefit of buying a mid-range edition.
2. Reviewers will be far less likely to run into technical issues resulting from running the OS on mid-range hardware.
3. More reviewers will focus more energy on features unique to Ultimate, which would be an implicit endorsement of Ultimate over all other editions.
These actions are intended to inhibit (albeit to a limited extent) the spread of unbiased criticism to those who would benefit most by it. Going back to Ethics 101, this is (however subtly) acting against the best interest of society, and therefore unethical. Of course, in a society accustomed to a continuous assault on fact from many angles (sales/marketing/politics, etc.), this will go entirely unnoticed.
From the perspective of diminished responsibility, I'd say this action is so minutely unethical that to label it "immoral" is misleading. "Guerrilla Marketing" would be a more useful characterization.