The Continuing War Against Microsoft's "Facts" Campaign 316
davidmwilliams writes "I've been rallying against Microsoft's so-called 'Get the Facts' site for the last fortnight in my blog. Rather than give any legitimate comparison facing off Windows Server vs similarly spec'd Linux options, the Microsoft spin doctors opt for bunkum and hogwash with sensational headlines that don't have any substance underneath. Here's the state of play, including an update on my request to Microsoft PR to do something about the blatant lack of integrity displayed. I also go over the latest case study put up by Microsoft: they promise to show why people are choosing Windows Server 2008 over Linux using the City of Uppsala as an example."
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
You are right, but the keyword is "feel"..
If I spend a million dollars in publicity where I suggest product X is, not only, superior to product Y, but also that everybody is going for product 'X'.
It would be normal for you to "feel" that product 'X' suits you best, even though it doesn't.
Swedish public sector (Score:5, Interesting)
The bosses because they all they know how to use is MS Office and they demand Outlook integration so they can book meetings and keep tabs on employees. Sysadmins because they are often self-taught (from magazines such as Datormagazin [datormagazin.se] and they feel threatened whenever someone suggests using something other than Windows.
Sadly many Swedish universites are in the process of switching to AD.
Pot? Kettle? Black? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not defending Microsoft, but decrying them using the same tactics you are admonishing them for using probably won't win you any followers that weren't on your side to begin with.
Re:Microsoft bashing is outdated (Score:4, Interesting)
> How about just having a third party review that compares products
That is difficult to achieve when, for example, Microsoft and Oracle EULAs prohibit releasing the results of benchmarking.
In Microsoft's case, this prohibition originated with SQL Server and now encompasses any product which uses the .Net frameworks including, apparently, WMP 11.
Fortunately I don't have any such concerns with the software I use, OpenBSD. Does that make me a shill?
90% discount for threatening to use open source (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:who cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you buy Windows, you don't know... (Score:5, Interesting)
So I asked on Usenet, got the right answer, and everything was working fine the next week when someone more senior from Microsoft called VERY apologetically and saying they'd reset our calls. For all I know they're still waiting for me to make 'em... because since then I've gone for the free "you don't know what you're going to get" support FIRST and it's always come through.
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm complaining about a lot of directed debugging that leads to nothing but more stalling. Even basic things like handling of times was broken when it was released so timer jobs wouldn't fire; even if content deployment actually worked reliably for us, that's a pretty significant problem. I'll also throw "completely useless error messages" into my list of complaints, while I'm ranting.
Microsoft chose to sell us -- to aggressively sell us -- their complicated product, at a pretty high price compared to other content management systems, with the promise that it does all these wonderful things that'll save us time and money and enhance our workflows, and so on. For that kind of price, I'd expect things to just fucking work, and if we do have problems then I'd expect a decent level of support to be provided, not bought as an extra.
So having bought the support as an extra, you're damned right I'm complaining about having to spend even more of my time debugging their software for them. For what we paid for it, I should be able to just set up a test farm with the same configuration and custom code as our production environment, give them RDP access, and let them debug the shit out of it. (Actually it would probably be better if we told them how we'd configured it, then they set up their own farm and tested our code in it.)
Commercial software houses are always spouting the "you get what you pay for" line. It's nice and pithy, but it means nothing if they don't deliver on it. And my experience with most vendors says they don't.
Re:Microsoft bashing is outdated (Score:5, Interesting)
5. BENCHMARK TESTING. You must obtain Microsoft's prior written approval to disclose to a third party the results of any benchmark test of the software.
How is this legal?
I'm not just thowing a car analogy out there, but its the first thing that I thought of. Cars when they say they have XXX horsepower, these claims are within government guidelines on how to measure horsepower.
The same is true for gas milage.
Benchmarks are part of the decision making process, and they are useful within and between different products (eg, SQL Server 1998 vs SQL server 2001 vs Oracle 15).
Yes, I know that benchmarks are not the end all be all, but they are a fairly standardized unit of measure that is used in many industries.
I also just hate EULAs, especially ones that don't even stay the same within a single product.
Re:who cares? LINUX SPINMASTER @ WORK, lol! (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, market share numbers are often fudged by technology companies, especially Microsoft. I recall one particularly silly ppt slide MS reps used to trot out that showed NT marketshare in the mid-'90s, when Novell Netware was the dominant competitor to NT. I worked for a PC distributor at the time, and every so often a MS rep would come in to feed us some kool-aid. The slide in question showed a bar graph with 3 vertical bars. The tallest bar was NT shipments from a particular time frame. The next, slightly shorter bar was Novell Netware 4.x shipments from the same period, and the third bar was Novell Netware 3.x. The Microsoft dog-and-pony expert would point proudly at the graph, explaining that it showed Microsoft's market dominance, despite the fact that the aggregate Novell NW 3.x + 4.x totals were substantially greater than NT.
I can also recall being told by management (same distributor) to ship at least 1 CAL with every order, for free if need be - whether it was ordered or not. Why? To artificially boost numbers of NT seats shipped.
I'm not saying you can't like MS products for whatever reason you see fit. But this isn't high school anymore. Popularity isn't everything.
30 years? Julius Ceasar called (Score:3, Interesting)
Marketing is as old as mankind. I bet Grog was selling stone wheels out of his cave with FUD.
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
'feel' might be the wrong word, however it is a good way to confuse 'best' product to market with the best product.
The prouct that wins in a competitive open market is rarely ever the product a human would 'feel' was best. Often they would 'feel' it was an inferior product.
As an example try to think of the best hamburger you ever ate. I know that this is a matter of opinion, but that's the judgment I want you to use. What was the hamburger you 'feel' was the best you ever ate? One that makes your mouth water just thinking about it. You're thinking of how you could plan a road trip right now so you can taste it again.
I know all the vegans reading are calling me an insensitive clod right now, but stay with this...
Was the hamburger you thought of a McDonald's brand plain hamburger? The plain regular McDonald's hamburger is clearly the market leader in hamburgers. It has complete market dominance and is the undisputed all time best seller in the market place. Billions and Billions served.
The product that the market place chooses as 'best' is rarely what a human would think of as 'best'. Market winners are usually best described as 'adequate'. They get the job done, and usually not much more. However the best to market is also cheaper. a product that functions adequately and costs less usually grows to dominate its market. More expensive products that offer more functionality can usually still carve out their own niche in a market, but they will not dominate.
Sony Beta was a superior product to VHS. It was also more expensive to license. VHS dominated the mass market, but Beta survives in the production studio where the extra cost is justified by the greater demands for sound and image quality.
Ford's Model T was inferior to other cars produced during its day. The other cars were hand made affairs. They were faster more comfortable and more powerful. Many were status symbols. The Stanley brothers would refuse to make a car for you if they 'felt' you were the wrong type of person to be seen in one of their vehicles. Ford however was the first to use complete mass production techniques to build his vehicles. This resulted in drastically reduced prices. His Model T was adequate and cheaper. Mass produced cars grew to dominate their market.
The IBM PC was about the worst PC you could purchase when it was introduced in the Early 1980's. It was under powered, had almost no software that would run on it, and was more expensive than almost anything else on the market (except for the Apple III and the Lisa). They would have been a tremendous flop if it weren't for IBM's existing corporate customers. An Apple II, a Commodore, an Amiga, even the TRS 80 had more software and was cheaper. Their market share was also larger than IBM's. IBM sales were almost exclusively made to corporate customers who used the pc's as terminals for existing mainframe computers. Think about it, a $2400, 640K, green screen dumb terminal. (nice keyboards though). But then came the clones. When the Bios was reversed engineered the market place was flooded with cheaper clones that ran that knockoff of CPM called MS-DOS. The cheaper, but adequate, clones gained dominance in their market. Just like the cheaper but adequate product always does.
A human would rarely choose the market winner based on how they 'feel' about the product. The market winner will need to perform adequately and to be cheaper. More expensive products can easily survive by offering more functionality or quality for their extra price (think gourmet hamburgers, Mercedes cars or Macintosh computers). Bill Gates knows his history and He knows the market place, and that is why he fears Linux. He knows that it is more than adequate and that it is cheaper. He will lose market dominance unless he can raise the cost of Linux (patent and copyright law suits that force license fees on Linux) or redefine what it means to be adequate (get enough corporation's documentation in patent encumbered formats that force a new mea