01.05.09
Hold on a Second, We’re Not the Bad Guys
“Besides — we’re the good guys!”
–Confidential Microsoft evangelism presentation
MARY Jo Foley has just decided to use the term “Microsoft haters” to describe those who talk about Microsoft’s demise (Rui for example). But hey, that’s not fair.
For starters, those who doubt Microsoft’s future have a sound explanation that includes Microsoft’s overt reliance on desktop software in an age when desktops matter a lot less. In fact, almost everything else that Microsoft touches turns out to be unprofitable, but these losses are sometimes outweighed by massive profits (which nonetheless decline) in a couple of divisions. Moreover, according to the very latest report — among many previous ones — Microsoft layoffs are no fiction. One of Microsoft’s fanalyst firms, Goldman Sachs, believes this to be true and imminent.
Goldman Sachs believes the Redmond company is likely to reduce its headcount.
David Gerard tells us about this post as well.
So going back to the beginning, it is not fair for Mary Jo Foley to label realists whose projections she considers inconvenient reality “Microsoft haters”. Bruce Byfield too has used this daemonisation term, “haters” [1, 2]; it’s a shoot-the-messenger-type strategy, which falls short of calling someone a “zealot” or “radical”. Microsoft and/or its partners even tried to label Andy Updegrove a “hater”, despite him being so exceptionally polite. This was noted in a blog last year.
These labels sometimes come from inside Microsoft and what it calls “talking points”. For example, Jim Gray from Microsoft Research (now deceased) said that Linux is a cult. █
“I have a hard time seeing the [Linux] Zealots
as any different from terrorist… I strongly believe
that if September 11 showed us anything, it
was that zealots…” — Rob Enderle, Microsoft talking point
Don’t hate us for saying the truth, Microsoft
G. Michaels said,
January 5, 2009 at 9:01 pm
… Microsoft tries to drive its critics into a state of desperation. It’s not so funny when you see victims of this and you see this more vividly in Microsoft’s leaks (the Slog) … This is a similar strategy, based on what I am told, to what the government tried to do to those resisting unnecessary wars. Ruining their name, driving them insane or driving them to suicide. I sense that what Reiser did relates to this
- Roy Schestowitz
“Attack” is a strong word. I characterise people who are, for a verifiable fact, harming FOSS, and often at Microsoft’s behest.
http://boycottnovell.com/2008/12/29/jimmi-hugh-wikipedia-censorship-on-ms/
Note: comment arrived from a witch hunter that does not even use GNU/Linux.
Needs Sunlight said,
January 7, 2009 at 4:31 am
Foley’s career is base on her M$ fan site and related writings. Of course rather than admitting bad work in the past, or addressing any of the actual issues, she now goes for the personal attacks. Any few redeeming professional characteristics now are overshadowed.
It’s funny how MSFTers, for lack of a better label, as a group use emotion, politics, and just about anything else non-technical to deal with what should be a technical problem.