Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Attacks Linux With Retail-Training Talking Points
DesiVideoGamer writes "Over at Overclock.net, a user has posted screen-shots from Microsoft's 'ExpertZone' training course entitled 'Linux vs. Windows 7.' This course is available to BestBuy employees and will make them eligible for a $10 copy of Windows 7 upon completion." The screenshots linked show at least some creative interpretations of the state of Linux vs. Windows on a wide range of things, from media playback and video conferencing to ease of updates to (of all things) keeping your PCs "safer." Most of the claims, though, aren't concrete enough to be perfectly refuted. Writes DesiVideoGamer, "I think I now know why, when I enter BestBuy, the employees say the odd lies that they do."
If anyone's interested in going to a local Best Buy on 9/19/09 with CDs and flyers and encouraging people to try gnu/linux on their laptops before they buy, visit http://trygnulinux.com/sfd09
If Microsoft thinks it's a worthy battleground, perhaps we should as well.
"That is what a software company SHOULD do."
No, a company should not slander their competitors to do more business. Propaganda results in an overall decline of the happiness of almost all consumers.
Consumers that are too ignorant to know any better will believe the ridiculous claims of "windows is safer than Linux" and "Linux is hard to update". (apt-get upgrade <-- 10 times simpler than windows bullshit update system). These consumers buy the product, have a bad experience with it (sales guy: Yeah, win vista will run fine on this laptop with POS specs!) then are forced to take the advice of these companies as complete lies and do their own research.
Consumers that know enough about this nonsense in the first place walk into the store with the (unfortunately correct) idea that everyone is lying to them and thus all advice needs to be disregarded.
Now, this means that if a consumer wants to buy some product and walks into the store and sees another similar product with a similar price they must then leave the store, research it, and then decide which to buy. It would help both the consumers and the store if the sales people could HONESTLY and ACCURATELY answer "what's the difference between these two products". Instead of "Well, this one is more expensive, so I get a larger commission, so you have to buy this one."
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I work in the financial market....
I called Microsoft a Zombie corporation (and warned several months ago that MSFT earnings would suck even though most traders were optimistic) and have a neutral rating on them. BTW I am not making this stuff up. I happened to have started in the tech industry (still write quant code to this day), but moved to quant/algo trader/junior trader.
The real problem with Microsoft is that its operating system division is dragging down the entire corporation. Windows 7 is not great. I upgraded a Vista machine (HP tablet) and have to say, not bad, but I only upgraded because Vista was so bad. Would I upgrade my XP machines? NOT A CHANCE!!!
I also use Linux and have to say I am very impressed. Perfect? Nope, but very usable. I actually now prefer the Ubuntu fonts to read. Quite nice.
Apple, and Linux are going to devour Microsoft. The cycle has truly started. And once Chrome gets rolling Microsoft is going to have its hands full.
Look at the reality:
1) IIS cannot and has not beat Apache (even after a complete decade). The fact that a product can beat Microsoft is not widely talked about by Microsoft. Notice how Microsoft stopped talking about its IIS?
2) IE is getting stomped! You cannot deny it, but IE is getting beat by Firefox, Chrome (my preferred) and somewhat Safari.
3) Microsoft has completely lost the mobile business and is getting pulverized by the likes of Apple, Palm, and RIMM. Even Nokia has smelt the direction of the wind with the new N900. They know what is happening and are positioning themselves.
4) Java is STILL around. It used to be Microsoft could come out with a development language or environment and the world would bow to Microsoft. Java is still kicking and arguably is doing very well standing its own ground.
Microsoft has some major issues and Windows 7 will show that things will not work...
When the stock market sniffs the lack of Windows 7 follow through MSFT is going down! Right now the market is divided hence its stock price just keeps rolling around treading water. But when that balance sheet keeps grinding down MSFT is done! I am thinking you will probably be able to pick MSFT shares around the low teens next year.
Normally it would be a bit higher, but the selling will be relentless as people will want to get out of their positions (incl the MSFT employees)
How do you solve this?
1) Fire Ballmer and top management
2) Make a base Windows OS open source (no frills). Not for Linux trumping purposes, but if the Windows OS horse dies the entire corporation goes down...
Windows has become a yolk for the entire Microsoft corporation... In the past it was a blessing, now its a curse...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
It's great that BestBuy wants to make money and that one of the ways they can make money is to "partner" with companies, like Microsoft, that will pay them to lie. That's Capitalism for you.
It's also a prominent reason that I, and most of my friends, don't shop at BestBuy. We all know we'll be lied to from BestBuy. It'd be great to go up to a salesperson and feel confident that any questions will receive carefully considered, honest responses. But, what we get are push-products-sold-by-Company-X-because-they're-our-partner responses. So, unlike 1999 when I went to BestBuy once a week, now I go there maybe once every year. I just don't like their B.S.
Well, that and their policy to DEMAND I listen to their spiel about extended warranties, with no regard to whether or not I, the customer, want to hear that crap.
Isn't this against the spirit of DOJ's settlement with MS? This shouldn't be allowed when on anti-trust probation.
Table-ized A.I.
I don't have much of an issue with the list itself. Obviously it's heavily biased, but I see nothing on there that can be called an outright lie.
My problem is the purpose of BestBuy sending staff to a presentation like that. It's specifically intended to give staff arguments to persuade customers to buy Windows. When the real goal of the staff should be to identify each customer's needs and guide them based on that.
It's one thing to make mention of a more expensive product to see if there's a chance of an upsale, it's quite another to be as one-sided as this presentation is. Whether the staff will recite that presentation to any and all customers, or simply use it as input for any customer that asks for examples of why to pick one over the other, remains to be seen. But I have a feeling....
No, I will not upgrade my XP... At least right now the odds are against it.
Let me tell you about something we did...
We used to run Windows 2000 server. And then one day we needed to install it on new hardware. Did not work. So I got the idea and said, why not create a VMWare partition and install Windows 2000 on it and run exclusively Linux servers...
That was 3 years ago! And we still run Windows 2000 server. Recently they tried to install Windows 2008 Server as a virtualized server OS and it sucks completely... But the positive experience with the desktop making us to think about shifting to Linux on the desktop.
Right now the traders have 2 Windows machines and 1 Linux desktop machine. Thus far no problems...
But what we do know right now is that whatever desktops they need, if it involves a native Windows installation it will be the cheapest version with the work horse being Linux.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Yeah, that's right. Because this means that MS is that something the whole FOSS community has done these last years has worked and MS now actually feels threatened by it and the need to train salesman into fighting it. It is also good news because after all, there is no such thing as bad advertisement, and this is just going to spell out "Streissand effect".
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Why hasn't anybody come up with the Linux equivalent of the .dmg file?
Linux had disk images for long before OS X did, and it's a terrible way of distributing software.
Seriously, I think you've been brainwashed a bit by the Apple flashiness. Think about what's going on here:
Every non-technical Mac user I know never gets to step 3. They get to step 2, say "Oh, there's my app!" and double-click it. Which means they run Firefox out of a disk image for years at a time, and never upgrade, because the DMG is read-only and Firefox won't auto-update itself.
Compare to:
In other words, the reason there isn't the "Linux equivalent to the DMG file" is because what we have actually is better, and easier to use, when it works.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Your response is either obtuse or ignorant. The post you're responding to is clearly not seeking an ABI that is merely stable for him, but rather an ABI that is consistent and stable for the entire platform. Suggesting that he sticks to one particular version for himself does nothing to enable him to walk into a store and know that any arbitrary piece of software would work on his system.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Eric Raymond has an interesting article (2006) where he argues that big changes on the software market can only occur when there is an industry-wide switch in the hardware. According to Eric Raymond the window of opportunity created by the transition to 64bit platforms closes (has closed) in 2008. However I still see Windows Vista PCs on sale with 3GByte of memory because 64bit Windows lacks driver support and 32bit Windows can only address 4GByte of memory (minus 1GByte to address the graphics card AFAIK).
Well considering I went from +5 to negative 2 in under 1 hour, i guess the mods don't agree with you. Only a fool would say that groupthink isn't VERY strong here at /., and I am no fool. Say that Apple is expensive, that Linux has problems, or that Windows doesn't always suck balls and watch your karma burn baby. Just for placing the post you responded to I have had no less than 4 posts on different subjects suddenly modded down. I have no doubt for daring to respond to you I will be modded down yet again, so say what you want, the evidence says otherwise.
That doesn't change the fact that without a stable ABI there is simply no way for me to tell my customers what is safe and what isn't to buy. Customers aren't gonna rush home and do research just to buy a new gadget, and they certainly aren't gonna walk around Best Buy with a pen and paper writing down models numbers to research, yet that is EXACTLY what they have to do to buy anything at retail with Linux? It is 2009, WTF? Are Windows drivers great? Nope, in fact I have seen some seriously sucky drivers in my day. But they work, so that my printer prints, my cap card captures, etc. They may be bloated or buggy but i don't end up with a paperweight. My printer? paperweight. Wireless in my laptop? paperweight unless I want to run completely unsecured (no thanks). Can I walk into the Best Buy down the road and replace them? Nope, because without doing research first I have a good 70% chance of being in the same boat i am now, and that is simply unacceptable in 2009.
So while I agree that pulse is shit and package management needs to be standardized, again that is rearranging deck chairs while the boat goes down. Until there is a simple and easy way for Joe normal to walk into a retail shop and pick up hardware without needing to spend hours on forums first, well then there simply isn't much of a point. Bundling kills any price gains that Linux has over Windows, because unless your name is Michael Dell you can't compete on bundles. Likewise with support contracts, which are a corporate thing that home users will never go for. They need a way to walk out of my shop and go "I'd like to pick up a new printer to go with this new box" and just walk into any store and buy with confidence. With Windows I can tell them to look for the "Works with Windows x" logo, with Apple the Apple logo, with Linux they are SOL. And as long as everything from the kernel on up is a moving target, so trying to write a binary driver is like hitting a dartboard with a bumblebee, that will never ever change. There is simply no way to certify a piece of hardware, because the next update could break it all and put you back in the same boat.
But you watch, even though the two of us are having a nice civil conversation on our opposing views on the subject, just like the other posts this will be modded to hell for daring to oppose groupthink. ever since they screwed up meta modding here on /. the quality of posts with differing viewpoints are frequently buried, and the trolls are getting thick. Just witness the fact that the first 20 or so posts are now variations of "nigger" and faggot" posts, whereas in the past all we would get is the occasional GNAA or Penisbird ASCII art. Damned shame to see this place become another Digg.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I don't know what'd be funnier: Microsoft actually paying people to spend time on Slashdot, or people like you who believe this is even a plausible story. It makes Slashdot appear very important, I know. But it isn't.
They in fact do pay a PR firm (Waggener Edstrom) handsome amounts of money to do lots of stuff, including recruiting shills to "independently" review and blog favorably about their products, including conducting pro-MS Twitter campaigns, and the list goes on. Microsoft's history of astroturfing various forums in an attempt to influence opinion (directly or through PR lackeys) is well-known. The idea that they wouldn't deign to waste their time on slashdot is either deceitful, disingenuous, or naive. We may not be as big or important as Microsoft, but yeah, they've heard of us.
Based on years of reading/posting here, I'd say the above-mentioned mods were out of the norm. They might be just statistical noise, or quite likely enthusiastic MS fanbois, but there is a reasonable chance that MS or their flunkys had something to do with it. There isn't much difference between a fanboi and an astroturfer anyway.
Slashdot stories and commenters have screamed MS is going down for years, and they're doing better than ever now.
Better than ever? Their flagship desktop OS is a flop and losing ground to competitors on all sides; their profitable Office offerings are under attack from several entities such as Sun, Google, and what may be a patent troll lawsuit; their merger/takeover attempt with Yahoo was repeatedly spurned; the EU's ankle-biting has gotten fiercer as of late; their browser, despite a recent and belated decision to properly support industry standards, is steadily losing marketshare; in a booming world of online music distribution their music service failed miserably; and their overhyped mobile platforms aren't gaining much traction.
They may still be the 800 pound gorilla, but that doesn't mean they are a healthy gorilla
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.