Remember the posting I made a couple weeks ago about a ms marketing shill
wanting to do a survey on FLALUG members? What a coincidence that ms started
a new advertising campaign against linux yesterday.
Smitty
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1426252,00.asp
Microsoft Corp. on Monday launched a new advertising campaign, referred to as
"Get the Facts," which is designed to give customers information about the
advantages of using its Windows operating system versus Linux, its
open-source competitor.
A Microsoft spokeswoman told eWEEK on Monday that this campaign that will
target leading IT publications and run for six months. She declined to say
what the company expected to spend on the campaign.
This latest move is yet another way the Redmond, Wash. software firm is trying
to counter the effects of the Linux operating system, and is in keeping with
the strategy embraced by Martin Taylor, who took over the role of Microsoft
open-source and Linux strategist last July.
When he was appointed to the position, Taylor said he would make it his
personal mission to publicize more studies that showed that Microsoft
software beat the return-on-investment pants off the open-source
alternatives.
The Microsoft spokeswoman said its customers had told the firm they wanted
research and information to help make value-based IT decisions. "Over the
past year, software cost and value has been a common issue raised by IT
customers.
"The 'Get the Facts' advertising campaign aims to bring some of this
information to companies who are making decisions about their IT solutions,"
she said.
The ads will drive customers to a new Web site, where they will find
"third-party evidence on what customers and analysts are saying about
Microsoft Windows versus Linux," she said.
But a prominent statement on the Web site proclaims that "leading companies
and third-party analysts confirm it: Windows [Server System] has a lower
total cost of ownership and outperforms Linux." Statements like that have
been aggressively challenged by members of the Linux and open-source
community and is certain to stir ongoing controversy.
But Taylor's plan to provide customers with "objective third-party research
and facts", much of which is paid for or sponsored by Microsoft itself, has
not always been that well received.
In fact, after Forrester Research's Giga Information Group unit went public in
September with a research study that was paid for by Microsoft and found that
Microsoft offered a cost advantage over J2EE/Linux as a development platform
for certain portal-type applications, the research firm later said it would
no longer publicize any similar future studies.
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