“Never wrestle with a pig—you get dirty and the pig likes it”

--Sometimes attributed to Abraham Lincoln

Summary: Microsoft's marketing strategy turns very ugly and unethical based on reports and press releases that have received no proper attention

AS WE pointed out many times before, Microsoft loves contracting companies to do its unethical and/or illegal activities. We last mentioned this in reference to Plurk, but we have a lot of posts about Microsoft's PR agencies, which are doing nasty things to promote Microsoft.

Well, Microsoft has just hired another sort of "proxy" to do its marketing. The name of the firm is Halesowen and in their site they say:

Microsoft picks Halesowen company to feature in new advertising campaign

[...]

Simon added: “Not only have we re-initiated old relationships, but by using e-mail Marketing, we now have a targeted way to promote specific business services.”

"E-mail Marketing" a euphemism for spam, or even "legalised" spam which is uninvited bulk mail that's promotional. Well done, Microsoft. This company suits your character.

Another marketing contract has just been signed with eCoast. Here are the details:

eCoast to Provide Twitter Marketing for Microsoft

[...]

eCoast, a provider of outsourced demand generation and channel program management solutions in the technology industry, was selected by Microsoft to offer marketing services to its channel partners through the Ready-to-Go Microsoft portal.

Microsoft already uses Waggener Edstrom to 'manage' Twitter. Microsoft also ganged up against the Twitter community (real people) using Federated Media. In addition, see the following:

• Microsoft Twitter Bots, FTC Blowback, and Paid-for Vista 7 Glorification
• Are Microsoft Employees (Technical Evangelists) Using Spammers in Twitter?
• More Microsoft AstroTurfing (aka 'Technical Evangelism') in Twitter
• User “Microsoft Incentives” Wants to be Your Friend, Too
• Microsoft's Twitter AstroTurf Continues
• Who is Pumping MSFT and Pimping Microsoft in Twitter?
• Does Microsoft Still Create Twitter Accounts for Guerilla Marketing?
• Microsoft's AstroTurfing, Twitter, Waggener Edstrom, and Jonathan Zuck
• Microsoft Offers Gentle Bribes to People Who Mention Vista 7 in Twitter
• Microsoft Was “Twitter's First-ever Association with a Marketer”
• GE, Microsoft, Comcast and (Microsoft AstroTurf at) Twitter: Pact of Lies

Microsoft marketing has neither shame nor boundaries. They probably convinced themselves that they are doing a favour to the world. As Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson once put it, “I think he [Bill Gates] has a Napoleonic concept of himself and his company, an arrogance that derives from power and unalloyed success...”

Well, look at this new development; Microsoft is hiring "independent experts" whom it pays and one cannot help thinking whether the PR agencies of Microsoft do the same thing. We know for sure about the lobbying groups and there are many confirmed cases of Microsoft AstroTurfing.

As it turns out, just like last year (when Microsoft first introduced Vista 7), there are big freebies at PDC:

Microsoft surprised attendees to November’s Professional Developers Conference with free touch-screen laptops. It wasn't largesse, for the company had an ulterior motive: to get developers to write applications that utilize touch interfaces.

Who can forget the Vista 7 laptops bribes from the previous year (PDC 2008)?

According to TechCrunch, Microsoft is now bribing some more bloggers in exchange for coverage.

Microsoft Recruits Student Bloggers With Free Software And Trips To Conferences

We’ve confirmed with Microsoft that the tech giant has launched a new program, called Student Insiders, to enlist college students to blog about Microsoft products. In return, the Microsoft “Student Insider” will be able to attend Microsoft conferences, such as Microsoft’s developer conference, PDC, and others and then write about their experiences and the products. The student will get all expenses paid to attend conferences as well as receive free training on Microsoft products. Student Insiders are expected to cover 15 events or topics a year, with at least “500 engagements per event/topic.”

It appears that Microsoft will try to recruit students with “established blogs” to write about a wide variety of Microsoft products. The advertisement we received focused on getting students to review Microsoft’s Expression Studio, a design and development software.

It is rather strange that TechCrunch complains about it because Microsoft paid Michael Arrington to recite Microsoft slogans in his blog, TechCrunch. He got exposed and turned very rude towards those who exposed him. Either way, Microsoft has an extensive history of distorting blog content by bribing bloggers. The above talks about the bribing of students, but Microsoft bribes professors too. ⬆

"Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, "he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2." Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition's technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors' technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time."

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]