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Assessing Media Bias: Microsoft Vs. Everyone Else
snydeq writes "J. Peter Bruzzese questions whether Microsoft receives unfair criticism in the media, while Apple, Facebook, and Google seem to get away from missteps unscathed. 'I've noticed an unfair, ongoing trend: If Microsoft does something a little off, it gets bashed into the ground for it. But if Google, Facebook, or Apple (all three of which can be categorized, like Microsoft, as The Man in their own rights) missteps, it generally gets mild reprimands and even support from the media and those drinking the Kool-Aid.' Do you feel any inherent media bias in its coverage of the tech industry?"
Exactly how far back does your memory go? For decades while Microsoft held power over all computers that mattered the press was overwhelming pro-M$. A big part of that was of course because they poured an enormous amount of money into the publishers' coffers. Even whole publishers owed their existence to M$ and never would be heard a discouraging word (ever heard of Ziff-Davis?). Then there was this little thing of being convicted of illegal antitrust market manipulation and a few folks woke up to the idea that it is possible that not everything M$ puts out smells all that sweet.
Did Fox News write this?
J. Peter Bruzzese did. He's simply a
Microsoft MVP, Triple-MCSE, MCT, MCITP: Messaging. J.P.B. is the Enterprise Windows columnist for InfoWorld and an avid Windows and Exchange advocate.
Why wouldn't he be fair and balanced?
Which of the following four companies is a convicted monopolist?
a) Microsoft
b) Apple
c) Facebook
d) Google
The correct answer is "a" (Microsoft). The leadership that festered that predatory behavior is still at Microsoft. Bill Gates is Chairman, Steve Ballmer is CEO. That's why Microsoft's actions warrant careful scrutiny.
It's unfortunate that the "editors" allowed themselves to be trolled this way.
PAGE 2 of the FA
"Why Microsoft is such a target for bashing"
Microsoft is bashed so often (unfairly, in my opinion) because of past issues and the perceptions surrounding those issues, including:
â-Microsoft was embroiled in antitrust matters. That's old news for Microsoft, but it may be novel for Apple, which is coming under government scrutiny, not that you hear much about it.
â-Microsoft products are criticized for security holes -- that Vista filled in. Thanks to 10 years of its Trustworthy Computing effort, Microsoft is a leader in teaching the Secure Development Life Cycle methodology to other companies.
â-Microsoft was criticized for not being innovative -- although the Xbox and the Kinect are two of the many areas showing just the opposite.
â-Microsoft was criticized for being closed and guarded, and for not playing nice with other ecosystems -- despite, in recent years, the amazing amount of open information through MSDN blogs and an open source forum called Codeplex. The fact that Microsoft releases software for other platforms like Mac OS X and iOS should dispel this critique.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I don't really see it. It looks to me like a Microsoft partisan is pulling the old "liberal media" trick of accusing everyone else to be biased so that he'll look less biased. The guy making the complaint is intricately tied to Microsoft (he's Microsoft VIP, and MSCE, a Microsoft Partner...), these are facts that he neglected to mention in the article because they might lead people to rightly believe that his reporting might have a pro-Microsoft bias.
Also I've never heard of the controversy he claims gets "so much attention". It's biased reporting of the worst sort.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Google's dominance in the search market is/was largely based upon technical merit. Also, Google has fairly limited lock-in to end users. You can switch to Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc., very easily if you so choose.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Even IE 6 was good when it was released.
So I see you're not a web developer. The problem with IE was not related to the user interface, or rendering speed, or security. The problem was proprietary extensions, which to some degree were intended to replace the standards. You coded your web page the standards-compliant way, or the microsoft way, or went to awful lengths to support both.
Oh, and the user interface, rendering speed, and security were abysmal.