Angry Vista 7 mob attacks a numerical benchmark of Vista 7

Summary: Nick Mediati gets attacked personally for saying the truth about Vista 7

According to this new message from USENET, "Nick Mediati is feeling like the most hated man in San Francisco at least this week. The PC World assistant editor wrote "Speed Test: Windows 7 May Not Be Much Faster Than Vista," which reported the results of our performance testing on the Windows 7 Release Candidate. Suddenly, he finds himself fending off a slew of stinging objections and even scathing personal attacks from commenters on the site who believe his conclusions are biased."

Compare it to this story from Tim Bray:

In 1997, as a result of signing a consulting contract with Netscape, I was subject to a vicious, deeply personal extended attack by Microsoft in which they tried to destroy my career and took lethal action against a small struggling company because my wife worked there. It was a sideshow of a sideshow of the great campaign to bury Netscape and I’m sure the executives have forgotten; but I haven’t. I should tell that story here sometime so that should my readers discern an attitude problem regarding Redmond, it ain’t because I work at Sun. Also, it has a funny ending.

A couple of weeks ago, when Microsoft had a negative review of Surface taken down, Twitter wrote:

There is nothing gentle about that contact. If you are so "Microsofty" that you would even consider a $13,000 novelty, Microsoft is your oxygen. They go on to explain the hate mail they got.

5pm today that discussion had become so chock full of “web-muck” (the online equivalent of the telephone game, where the original message gets lost in the transmission) that it was becoming a huge distraction. ... the tireless Apple vs. PC debate ... impassioned souls who accused me of being everything from a “Microsoft Apologist” to “M$ fanboy” to a “complete idiot”

This is typical troll juice and crap flood that comes from Microsoft astroturfers. Microsoft and friends will smear this person to protect what's left of their own reputations. Had this person worked for Microsoft or a Microsoft partner, they would have been fired. Comments to the apology posts are now moderated and I doubt any will see the light of day.

Let's not forget the vicious attacks on DaemonFC, who 'dared' to criticise Vista 7 in public. Hours ago he told us that Vista and Vista 7 are very comparable in terms of speed. He has been using both (including the RC of Vista 7). This agrees with the benchmark which started this whole post. Other independent people with software which is dedicated to the task of benchmarking have reached the same conclusion. Randall Kennedy, for example, summarised his benchmark findings by writing: "My initial evaluation of Windows 7 shows that it's really just Vista with a fresh coat of paint."

So who is behind these attacks? We already know that Waggener Edstrom was behind the bribing of bloggers in exchange for positive early reviews of of Vista 7. Bloggers were given overpowered laptops with Vista 7 preloaded, so of course they say no performance issues. This has "guerrilla marketing" written all over it, but this may also include guerrilla-like attacks on critics, and that would be just criminal. ⬆

"I'm a huge fan of guerrilla marketing."

--Joe Wilcox, Microsoft Fan

"I receive an e-mail from Julie McCormick at Waggener Edstrom in which she extends a "special save-the-date" invitation to attend a "unique, invitation-only" event being hosted by the Windows Client team. She labels the subject matter as "confidential"..."

--Randall C. Kennedy

"I've been thinking long and hard about this, and the only conclusion I can come to is that this is ethically indistinguishable from bribery. Even if no quid-pro-quo is formally required, the gift creates a social obligation of reciprocity. This is best explained in Cialdini's book Influence (a summary is here). The blogger will feel some obligation to return the favor to Microsoft."

--Former Microsoft manager

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