Summary: Anti-GNU/Linux indoctrination said to have reached many more stores and Macs ridiculed too

A REASONABLE QUESTION has begun to arise: "just how many large retailers have had their staff pushed/forced to dislike GNU/Linux?" Does this encompass only US-based retailers? We already know that Microsoft has done this in multiple large chains of stores [1, 2, 3] and OStatic covers this too. How about Wal-Mart [1, 2]? According to this report from The Register, Office Depot is also among those who train staff on behalf of Microsoft.

One booklet shared with our Office Depot salesman includes a page that looks like this...

Look carefully at those images. They paint Linux is red (as in fire, blood, red lights, a red card, and communism) and Vista 7 always appears surrounded by green background, which implies approval. It would have looked and be perceived differently had Linux been embedded within green-coloured backgrounds, but they are busy playing psychological marketing games. The arguments too are false. SJVN writes:

Microsoft's latest Linux lies

[...]

"If you can't beat 'em, cheat" has long been Microsoft's philosophy, which has lead to the Department of Justice and the European Union swatting them with restrictions and hundreds of millions of dollars in fines over the years. But that hasn't stopped them. In our latest example, an anonymous blogger who goes by GodofGrunts at OverClock.net, a site for people who want the fastest possible PCs, reports on his Microsoft ExpertZone training at Best Buy. What he 'learned' from Microsoft isn't 'exactly' true.

[...]

Microsoft also claims you can't use video chat on desktop Linux. Yet I use Ekiga and Skype for video chat on Linux all the time.

Then there are the "Get the FUD" — er, "Get the Facts Straight" slides, which serve as a reminder that Microsoft's Get the Facts anti-Linux campaign (2004-2007) actually lives on.

More on factual mistakes:

It goes on to list tables with "Camera, iPod, and MP3 compatibility" and "Printers and scanners compatibility" being described as "many" for Windows and "few" for Linux. It also lists an ambiguous "Authorized Support" which it claims Linux is lacking, ignoring the fact that many Linux distributions do have support teams. It also mentions that Linux users can't play games like "World of Warcraft", which Windows users can. Ironically, Linux users can in fact use WoW within the free WINE.

It turns out that Microsoft not only targets GNU/Linux but Macs too. See for example:

1. Microsoft bribes Best Buy staff to slam Mac and Linux



2. Microsoft Targets Linux (and Macs) with Latest Chart-Based Propaganda

"What next," asks Tony Manco, "FreeBSD or Amiga?"

Ars Technica first published the following: "Microsoft teaches Best Buy employees how to troll Linux users"

Microsoft training material for Best Buy employees—which not only makes Linux look bad, but is also full of inaccuracies—has leaked to the Web. Screenshots and commentary inside.

It was anti-Macs too, as Ars Technica added slightly later: "Microsoft helps Best Buy employees troll Mac users, too"

We've got our hands on Microsoft training material for Best Buy employees. It not only makes Macs look bad, but is also full of inaccuracies. Screenshots and commentary inside.

That immediately drew Mac proponents into this debate. Roughly Drafted Magazine wrote about this too and the Microsoft crowd at Neowin sees nothing wrong with Microsoft's behaviour, unlike Dave Rosenberg for instance. He calls it mis-education.

Regarding security, Harish Pillay writes:

MSFT's analysis of security

[...]

If we are to look at any software product's development methodology (open source or closed source), every study (see David Wheeler's page), shows that by being open, you are assured that if there are vulnerabilities and defects, IT WILL BE FOUND AND FIXED. Earlier last month, an eight-year-old vulnerability in the Linux kernel was discovered and fixed. Try that for ANY MSFT product. I am not begrudging their business model. What I am begrudging is the smooth "lies" that they constantly put out - including the cleverly crafted report referenced above.

Nevermind the past. Let's move forward and look at what is looming on the horizon. Vista will be dead soon when MSFT releases their Windows 7 sometime this year. And how do they intend to bring it to the market? How about with blatant lies? I did pose the question earlier today and hoping that someone from MSFT will respond. It is HIGHLY unlikely anyone will (right @osrin and @tonynewling?). Now I read that the same lies are done with Mac as well.

Why can't MSFT do an honest job in selling their product? Why do they have to resort to outright lies and misrepresentations? The whole MSFT business is an intellectual vacuum and morally corrupt.

Microsoft would say nothing in these reports about its "secret" patches. The reality behind one year of Vista reveals many "critical" flaws and accompanying lies. Now there is a serious flaw that permits remote BSoDs. It turns out to be an "ancient flaw" which Vista 7 is somehow susceptible to.

SOFTWARE ALCHEMIST Microsoft has admitted that its Vista operating systems is shipping with a bug that was first discovered in Windows machines in 1999.

More here regarding the severity:

A security researcher has said there is a zero-day vulnerability affecting Windows 7 and Vista.

And... there is another brand-new vulnerability:

Microsoft, Cisco issue patches for newfangled DoS exploit

[...]

On Tuesday, Microsoft responded with MS09-048, a security advisory that fixes a variety of networking vulnerabilities in Windows operating systems, including those discovered by Louis and Lee. The update implements a new feature called memory pressure protection, which automatically drops existing TCP connections and SYN requests when attacks are detected.

Remote BSoD flaws open a window of possibilities.

The BSoD at the Olympics is making a sort of a comeback this week: (see photo)

It's not the first time this kind of embarrassing stuff has happened; Microsoft had another glitch at the Beijing Olympics last year. But hey, it could happen to anybody, right?

The Microsoft/Seattle blogs covered this as well. Who is Microsoft kidding? ⬆