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Microsoft Battles Vista Perception With Prizes
LambAndMint writes "In what can only be described as an act of utter desperation to overcome Vista's mostly negative public perception issues, Microsoft has put together an online "Fact or Fiction" quiz about Windows Vista. Every person who submits themselves to Microsoft indoctrination gets a free shirt and the chance to win a $15,000 prize. Some of the supposed 'facts' will make you feel like you're reading a document from an alternate reality. Get ready to get a job as a computer salesman for a mass-market retailer as you go through the quiz."
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
Have you ever talked with Microsoft marketing people?
Sure did, and was sharp that day.
We were at an internal technology presentation, showing off what we do. Being security, we had our BSD, UNIX loggers and appliances on screens for everyone to see. We had a "tail -f syslog" and other logs just a moving every bad event across the screen in real time. Many called it similar to matrix.
Along comes the CFO and the Microsoft sales guy. And asked me, I haven't seen that before what is it. I said it was OpenBSD firewall logs on the vendor net. He said "OpenBSD what? That isn't an OS, is it? BSD what? Is that LSD?" with a smile (He knew).
I looked at our CFO and said, OpenBSD, the operating system we use to keep our Microsoft systems from getting wormed, infected and controlled by others. We also use it for firewalls, detection and system login because they cost less, run longer and don't requires the costly hand care to keep them going as does Microsoft Windows. We don't have the staff, software or capital budget for Microsoft.
Rubbed it right in. My manager heard from the CFO 2 days later, he was impressed and got a second tour with my manager. And a budget increase and authorization to use BSD and open source, in writing to the executive staff.