Worldwide surveillance by Microsoft is at risk

Summary: Microsoft's offensive and facts-free campaigns still target products which run GNU/Linux, even if the "G" and "L" words are not mentioned (Chromebooks/Google are the target now)

IT WASN'T MANY years ago that Microsoft launched blatantly deceiving anti-GNU/Linux marketing campaigns. What can only be described as manipulative propaganda Microsoft called "Get the Facts"; only George Orwell was right, getting the facts on newspeak.

As we pointed out the other day, the crooks from Microsoft give even porn stars a bad name by calling their propaganda agents 'Pawn Stars'. Wait, wasn't it Microsoft that called developers "Pawn"? Yes, it did. And watch how far and deep Microsoft's propaganda goes now. As one site put it: "The world of advertising is a cut throat world, the strong survive and the weak are left behind. Microsoft has reached out to the popular History Channel show, Pawn Stars for their “Scroogled” campaign." One writer at IDG called this "reality-distortion field" and said: "Much like reality TV, Microsoft's anti-Chromebook ads overlook several facts about Google -- and Microsoft itself" (the same goes for anti-Google commercials that Microsoft airs in the UK, hiding its own special relationship with the NSA).

The anti-Chromebook campaign is yet another anti-GNU/Linux campaign, targeting one particular brand which became competitive and is gaining share [1].

As Microsoft is a company of financial fraud (it would not be shocking if the US government indirectly subsidised it to carry on spying on the whole world) we should be happy to see Windows going away, but it should be noted that Chromebooks don't respect user's freedom and privacy. Robert Pogson pointed out the other day that: "When the legacy PC market is struggling for growth and PCs are being delivered to consumers down to ~$250 or so, the burden that M$ is to the market is clear. GNU/Linux or Android/Linux give OEMs a much larger margin. Sure, OEMs get a markup on the licence, but that doesn’t help if their competition is selling multiple small cheap computers for every legacy PC the OEM ships. Guess who does all the work? The OEM. M$’s not even breaking a sweat issuing permission slips to use hardware they don’t make. Despite declines, M$’s gross margin is still 90% of licensing revenue. OEMs actually make legacy PCs at a loss offset only by the margin on the licences for that other OS. OEMs are tired of being M$’s slave and are steadily decreasing the number of PCs shipping with that other OS. Instead they are producing what the market wants, small cheap computers running FLOSS. This trend is accelerating as OEMs trip over each other trying to exit. Even retailers are placing unboxed Chromebooks on shelves once cluttered with that other OS. My local Walmart doesn’t even bother to unbox desktop PCs with that other OS. They are piled up on the floor under the bottom shelf."

Chromebook are not a comforting trend. They have in them some of the same problems Windows has had. This should serve as a reminder of the need to advocate software freedom and tech rights like privacy, not just "Linux". ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Microsoft Should Be Scared to Death of Google's Chromebooks

   In the 1990s, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) worked hard to undermine Java, Sun Microsystem's programming language. Back then, it was believed that Java would allow programmers to write applications that could effectively run on any operating system, whether it was Windows or anything else. Although it never really materialized, the promise of Java's "write once, run anywhere" design philosophy held the potential to destroy Microsoft's Windows operating system monopoly.