05.14.13
Posted in Apple, Deception, Microsoft, Vista 8 at 3:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: ZDNet promotes Microsoft in the editorial sections, not just in the ads, and it employs Microsoft people who habitually also censor commenters for expressing views that may upset the customers (advertisers like Microsoft)
One has to be naive to genuinely believe that the corporate press has no bias because bias is built into it; it is the business model. When it comes to companies like Apple, for instance, Apple can pay a lot of money for favourable coverage to sites like CNET through the parent company, CBS (the payments are bade through ad contracts), which also owns ZDNet now. What this tends to lead to is the hiring of people more friendly to companies that advertise with the network (both Apple and Microsoft do that aplenty) and firing (or cultural driving out) of ‘misfits’. We gave examples before.
“A verbal memo [no email allowed] was passed around the MS campus encouraging MS employee’s to post to ZDNet articles like this one”
–Michelle Bradley, MicrosoftNot so long ago we showed Microsoft advertising creeping into editorial sections/structure of ZDNet. there is also an increasing number of former and present Microsoft staff there, acting as “journalists” (syndicated in news feeds) whose bias reeks. Zack Whittaker, former Microsoft UK staff, uses this tech tabloid to spin Microsoft antitrust cases and this month he used this CBS-owned tabloid to spread Microsoft lies about Vista 8 ‘sales’. These are lies. It’s like libel but in reverse, lying for a company rather than against it (hence it’s unlikely that a formal complaint will be raised). The spinner takes the lie as a given, spreads it, and then attempts to shift attention to another topic in his headline. Disgusting.
Some more Google bashing in this tech tabloid comes from Microsoft staff (link) and the Microsoft-bribed Bott (peripheral PR), who encourages us to go to Microsoft for our Fog Computing needs (Bott plays a special role for Microsoft along with Mary Jo Foley and Microsoft Jack). Here is the link to the ad (Ed). Others in the site have a mixed history with Microsoft; some try to announce the death of form factors where Microsoft could never make headway (link), but the bottom line is, ZDNet has a disproportional amount of Microsoft coverage (promotional), which is not surprising given that even Microsoft staff, not just peripheral unofficial staff or former staff, works there under the banner of ‘journalism’.
When did Microsoft PR agencies infiltrate the media to that high a degree? And how, except boycotting CBS sites, can one counter this?
There were times when corporations were leaning on journalists to print stuff. Now the corporations are journalists. No doubt about it, it is convenient for Microsoft. Even antitrust cases are covered in the press by its former employees (in CNET also, but that’s a subject for another day).
It should be noted that my comments in ZDNet got censored by the management not for being against the terms of service but for simply not expressing opinions they agree with. CBS employs sensitive deletionists who make the comments look friendly to the writers by deleting challenges. █
‘The author of the email, posted on ZDNet in a Talkback forum on the Microsoft antitrust trial, claimed her name was Michelle Bradley and that she had “retired” from Microsoft last week.
‘”A verbal memo [no email allowed] was passed around the MS campus encouraging MS employee’s to post to ZDNet articles like this one,” the email said.
‘”The theme is ‘Microsoft is responsible for all good things in computerdom.’ The government has no right to prevent MS from doing anything. Period. The ‘memo’ suggests we use fictional names and state and to identify ourselves as students,” the author claimed.’
–Wired Magazine
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05.09.13
Posted in Hardware, Marketing, Microsoft, Vista 7, Vista 8, Windows at 1:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Great example of Microsoft PR agencies distorting the news via moles
Summary: A timely look at how ‘former’ Microsoft writers — not just current ones — help manage perceptions at Microsoft’s behalf, infiltrating the media and even forums
AS WE last explained yesterday, there is some ugly pattern of deception emanating from Microsoft boosters. They try to shift liability for the failure of Vista 8 — a failure that not even they cannot deny any longer. There are ‘former’ Microsoft writers (as in, people who used to work for Microsoft) who continue to promote Vista 8 in various ways. This one, who works for CBS right now, does this trick by saying that low-cost gadgets are “to energize the PC market”. This may be true and Microsoft is totally out of this game, right? Well, not based on his framing. The article by this Microsoft booster mentions “touch-screen laptops” to give the illusion that Microsoft is still relevant in the future. This is how propaganda works. And by citing numbers from Microsoft’s partner Net Applications in the former article he also helps give the illusion that Vista 8 adoption is wonderful. Lies so big that they can make one vomit, eh? With Windows Blue (vapourware) being the focus of Microsoft right now, it is clear that Microsoft is already giving up on Vista 8 (retreat), but the boosters carry on with their deceptive ‘reports’. Well, there are more examples like that, involving many other writers, but we just focus on this one writer (formerly of Microsoft) with his two latest articles which are flawed in order to make the point. Vista 7 relied on similar tactics, including bribery of bloggers.
There is a fairly new article which covers this fascinating and troublesome phenomenon as a whole. Charlie Demerjian’s analysis is summarised as “Unleash the astroturfers to blacken the forums ASAP” (AstroTurfing is perpetually a strategy at Microsoft).
“Given the echo chamber effect of the internet where no one seems to think about the numbers they are reporting much less actually fact check them, it is really easy to manipulate the press and create “truth”. Microsoft is quite adept at this technique.”
–Charlie DemerjianTo quote: “So when Microsoft has good news, they shout it from the rooftops loudly. It is usually picked up by anyone that will listen and printed in just about every news outlet out there. Given the echo chamber effect of the internet where no one seems to think about the numbers they are reporting much less actually fact check them, it is really easy to manipulate the press and create “truth”. Microsoft is quite adept at this technique.”
Microsoft moles in the media are managed by Microsoft PR agencies which pass them material to publish in respective publications. That’s how it works. Demerjian continues as follows: “If change in PCs was needed to spur sales, that didn’t happen during the launches of Vista and 7. Sales rose. It did happen during the launch of Windows 8 and sales plummeted. Before you point out that change may be the actual cause of this plunge, think about one other little thing. You can still get Vista/7 form factor PCs now, you just can’t get them with those OSes. See the logical problem?
“Sadly though the damage control team, agency more likely, did their market research right. The whole fairy tale about PC makers being at fault seem to be getting some legs if not showing early signs of going viral. This is a really well thought out campaign given what they have to work with, cynical, unethical and anti-consumer though it is. Make no mistake though, it isn’t organic and is very manufactured. Things like this don’t go from nowhere to everywhere overnight without lots of backing and low wage forum drones to astroturf on your behalf. That said, it seems to be money well spent on Microsoft’s behalf.”
Be wary of the well-coordinated disinformation campaign, the deception centred around the idea that hardware companies — not Microsoft — are to blame for Vista 8′s poor adoption. Microsoft is trying to play with people’s minds, as always. █
“The first wave will attack the perception that Linux is free.”
–Brian Valentine, Microsoft
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05.08.13
Posted in Dell, Microsoft, Vista 8, Windows at 12:30 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
On to imaginary products
“In the face of strong competition, Evangelism’s focus may shift immediately to the next version of the same technology, however. Indeed, Phase 1 (Evangelism Starts) for version x+1 may start as soon as this Final Release of version X.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
Summary: The sale of Dell turns out to have been initiated by Microsoft, whose leading product (common carrier) is already having obituaries written about it due to the messages which come out from Microsoft
The manager behind the product which we dubbed Vista 8 has already been fired. It is easy to see why now that we have preliminary market statistics, just over half a year after the official release. Vista 8 greatly harmed OEMs such as Dell (Dell too has complained) and this new report says that Microsoft is paying Dell [1, 2, 3] to encumber PCs with Vista 8, leaving the customers out of the loop.
The terms of Microsoft’s $2 billion loan into the war chest of Denali Holdings, the Dell private buyout entity led by Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, are now public record. Microsoft’s money was key in raising the $24.4 billion required to finalize the offer for Dell, but it’s possible Dell will benefit even beyond the loan; the loan documents make clear that after the acquisition is complete, Dell will re-negotiate its payment terms for Microsoft software licenses.
So no longer is it mere speculation that Microsoft was behind Dell going private and selling out. “Windows Blues,” as iophk calls it, is what we are seeing here. “Vista 8 is failing so they are already doing the N+1 thing,” he adds. Here is a report about it. Talk about rush; this is motivated by panic. The Guardian says “PC sales plummet”, but what it means to actually say is “Windows preinstalls plummet” (because of failure to evolve). “Biggest expectation is that update will revive start button familiar to users for 17 years before removal from Windows 8,” writes Charles Arthur. But that’s not really an apt summary. The real news is that Windows is plummeting to minority market share and Microsoft has no clue what to do about it. Here is CNET claiming “‘Wintel’ on the wane: Intel goes Google”. The summary is as follows: “Intel has been synonymous with Windows PCs seemingly forever. But it’s trying to change that in a hurry. Enter Google.”
I recently had lunch with an Intel engineer who acknowledged this trend. Moblin and Tizen were not good enough as comeback attempts. Here is a criticism of what Microsoft is essentially doing right now. The author alleges that Windows 8 marketing fiasco deemed even worse than ‘New Coke’ and he starts with the obvious pitfall: “With the Windows Blue update on the way, analysts have already started writing obituaries for Windows 8, the operating system that proved to be immensely polarizing among PC users. While history will likely look upon Windows 8 more kindly than the widely despised Vista, Envisioneering analyst Richard Doherty tells The Financial Times that it will be remembered as the biggest marketing fiasco since Coca Cola decided to rework the
formula for its famous soft drink back in the ’80s.”
Here is IDG with some numbers:
Microsoft’s own numbers show Windows 8 sales falling rapidly
Microsoft says it’s sold more than 100 million Windows 8 licenses to date, but its officially reported monthly sales are falling off precipitously
Based on some numbers from IDC (part of IDG), despite a lot of money spent on marketing, Windows is a non-starter outside the desktop. █
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05.06.13
Posted in GNU/Linux, Vista 8, Windows at 1:14 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Building fences
Summary: UEFI Restricted Boot continues to be blamed for impeding the growth of free operating systems amid widespread Vista 8 dissatisfaction
The truth of the matter is that “Windows 8 is making only marginal progress and Windows RT continues to flop,” says the Associate Editor of InformationWeek.com, which is a Microsoft-friendly Web site. Even Windows boosters hardly ever denied that Vista 8 is a flop. They just blame others, e.g. OEMs, the users, etc. Mr. Pogson points out that Microsoft is creating a new breed of lock-in and OEMs are still part of it. With UEFI Restricted Boot, which distros are still just trying to catch up with, Microsoft has even upset some rather Microsoft-friendly entities, as Ravi reminds us. The Linux Foundation says that “this has raised concerns that Microsoft Secure Boot will make it difficult to install Linux or other operating systems on a Windows 8 computer.”
The very notion of a “Windows 8 computer” is rather sickening. Microsoft wants to impede general-purpose computer architecture. A Linux and BSD proponents site says that Vista 8 is the “most important reason to switch to [GNU]\Linux” and UEFI has a lot to do with it. The site’s author starts by stating:
As somebody who fully embraces the Free Software principle, I have no need for Windows 8 in my environment. Never used any version of Windows, and never will.
Previous versions of Windows were bad enough, but Windows 8, with its Restricted Boot requirements, have made dual-booting a Linux distribution with Windows 8 on store-bought computers a royal pain in the rear end.
Developers mostly reject Vista 8 and even Linux critics (masquerading as “advocates”), lean on the FSF for support. To quote:
The Free Software Foundation has taken recently to running a rather aggressive campaign.
Go to the website and judge for yourself. I hope the information helps you to make an informed decision that includes switching away from Windows to Linux.
“A hedge fund whose purpose is to influence boards sees potential in Microsoft and wants it to bring Office to more platforms,” according to a new report on which our contributor remarks as follows: “The office format monopoly is what ties people to Windows and helps keep the Windows monopoly. Here is pressure to break that.”
Windows on portable devices is a failure as Windows RT never took off and one pundit wrote:
The Web usage numbers are in: Windows RT can’t get traction, and Lenovo doesn’t believe RT ‘is what businesses want’
From the same site we pull this other criticism:
iOS and Android work well enough on a smaller screen, but Windows 8 will not
This is an area where Microsoft has been trying to make embedded chips Linux-hostile, especially with companies like ARM involved. This never worked because Microsoft lacked inertia in the area, but what about the desktop? A formal antitrust complaint has been lodged. █
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04.21.13
Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Vista 8, Windows at 4:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Don’t be bamboozled by Microsoft’s lies
Summary: The reality behind Microsoft’s financial results and the continued agony associated with inability to compete against Linux
As noted in the previous post, Microsoft’s CFO is fleeing, perhaps not wanting to be held accountable for future quarters at Microsoft. Mr. Arthur, who rarely takes Microsoft’s claims at face value, writes: “Here’s the first part of what happened. In June, Microsoft offered a scheme where people who bought a Windows 7 PC could update it to Windows 8 for just $15. The scheme ran through to December, and only after that could all the money received in it be cashed in. That gave a $1.1bn boost in “deferred” revenue which was really earned in the preceding six months, but couldn’t be recognised then.
“Take that away from the latest total, and you’re left with $4.60bn in this latest quarter, compared to $4.63bn a year ago.”
A year ago is before a new version of Windows came out! Talk about Vista 8 killing sales…
“Take that away from the latest total, and you’re left with $4.60bn in this latest quarter, compared to $4.63bn a year ago.”
–Charles ArthurThis weekend I bought two tablets and Microsoft was nowhere in sight among the tablets on display (the salesman was misinformed though, strongly insisting that one needs anti-virus software to use Android). People who bought tablets from Microsoft were not pleased, so this is becoming a dying breed and a source of misconception about security and stability (my Android tablet has not been booted for two months, since I first bought it). Well, the world is changing for everyone including the copyright industry because sales of portable devices are growing and many run Free software systems which thrive in abundance. Even Microsoft business partners report a serious decline for Windows machines and the Microsoft booster says that Microsoft is running back to where it used to be, essentially moving backwards with a “plan B”.
Microsoft just cannot evolve, not even by hijacking Nokia, which is dying under Microsoft leadership. “Do I need to remind you, that just before the Elop Effect, Nokia sold 2.6 million phones per quarter in the US market,” writes Tomi Ahonen.
“It’s about patent money,” writes Pamela Jones, “that agreement, in my view. I don’t think they care all that much about sales of phones. It’s like SCO selling Unix. They surely didn’t care. It was all about the litigation, which of course they denied until they were no more.”
“Why are GNU/Linux developers having to struggle with UEFI restrictions in the first place?”Having failed to stop the growth of Linux as of late, Microsoft also uses UEFI, which necessitates special distro releases just for Microsoft. As Jamie Watson put it the other day in his blog: “The Live image is Secure Boot compatible, but the installed system is not?”
Why are GNU/Linux developers having to struggle with UEFI restrictions in the first place? This is what Microsoft was hoping to achieve, but it cannot stop Android. UEFI is now the subject of an antitrust investigation, but when will there be another SEC investigation into Microsoft’s dirty financial tricks? Shareholders are being deceived. █
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04.18.13
Posted in Antitrust, Microsoft, Vista, Vista 8, Windows at 10:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Survival instincts?
Summary: In addition to filing an antitrust complaint against Android, Microsoft is committing antitrust sins when forcing OEMs to make hardware Microsoft-dominated
The Vista series, starting with Windows Vista, has been crushing the Windows franchise. Microsoft repeatedly extended the life of XP, now a 12-year-old system, in order to keep GNU/Linux at bay (Microsoft also used corrupt business practices to achieve this).
The other day we saw Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols saying that Windows is pretty much finished. To quote:
Windows: It’s over
You can think Windows 8 will evolve into something better, but the numbers show that Windows is coming to a dead end.
Vista 8 is indeed a dead end as Microsoft already leaps to vapurware, or imaginary replacements. ZDNet has this piece titled “What really signed the PC’s death warrant? Microsoft’s decision to support netbooks” (to keep GNU/Linux down).
“Some of the reasons for the collapse of the the PC market go a lot further back than the reception of Windows 8,” argues the author. By bribing to keep GNU/Linux out of netbooks Microsoft devalued Windows, which had already seen its value deflating after Vista came out.
There is a shameless attempt at spin, blaming hardware rather than software and given that Microsoft’s hardware is rejected as much as its software, this distraction does not hold water. We covered this before with examples.
One reader of ours asked: “Which real reviewer actually praised Microsoft Surface?
“It’s DOA like Vista 8 is.”
Indeed.
The Microsoft boosters too acknowledge Microsoft’s defeat, but their new strategy is to just discredit the opposition, as we shall show in a later post. Here is what the booster says:
The tablet market will grow this year by 38% to 150 million units, but Microsoft won’t be a beneficiary, says a new report from ABI Research. Windows tablets, BlackBerry tablets and “unidentified OS implementations” currently make up only 3% of the total market, and don’t show signs of significant growth.
The ABI Research report says that an estimated 150 million tablets will ship in 2013, worth an estimated $64 billion. The total number of tablets will grow by a projected 38% over 2012, and the total revenue will grow a projected 28%.
Realising that Linux is unstoppable and the demise of Windows to minority userbase imminent, Microsoft filed an antitrust complaint through a proxy. ECT has an analysis of it here. The overview says “Microsoft has “tried forcing people to license Android from them to try to kill Android, and they’ve tried putting out their own mobile OS to try to kill Android,” said blogger Mike Stone. “Both initiatives have failed on every level. People are still buying Android devices as fast as they can be made. All that’s left is to follow in Apple’s footsteps and sue sue sue. It stinks of desperation.”"
“Other people may turn to Windows in such a scenario.”Well, the latest antitrust violation is Microsoft’s, which according to yet more articles like this one is suppressing GNU/Linux adoption.
It is about UEFI restricted boot. “UEFI BIOS and Secure Boot work perfectly well with only Linux installed according to the experiments I have conducted on my own PC,” writes Jamie Watson this week. It has become complicated due to Microsoft’s dirty trick. Yesterday after an in-place distro upgrade I had to resolve a GRUB issue before I could boot again, so I know the feeling of discouragement through complexity, I nearly gave up and installed everything from scratch. Other people may turn to Windows in such a scenario. Some might simply stay with it, no matter how fed up they are. This is Microsoft’s last hope. █
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04.14.13
Posted in FSF, Microsoft, Vista 8, Vista 9, Windows at 3:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Leaving Windows in droves…
Summary: Actions of measurable effect (e.g. antitrust, campaigns) against the operation system version which is killing Microsoft’s common carrier, Windows®
Microsoft is destroying Windows by taking over machines and sending them faulty binaries. Microsoft is breaking Windows, “causing some PCs to blue screen,” says the report. This is not a matter of deliberate sabotage, but Microsoft is driving users away with its own negligence as people already flock away to alternatives, not Vista 8 (Claudio from Linux Basement says: “Holy crap, #Microsoft! Really? In 2013??”). Vista 9 vapourware has begun because Vista 8 is probably worse than Windows ME, not just Vista. This is a very big deal and the corporate press is starting to catch on.
Despite Microsoft-induced downtimes and technical incompetence (yes, even this week, leading to official probes at government level*), in the Indian public sector there seem to be new EDGI moves whose intention is to kill Free software in favour of total lock-in, Fog Computing that Microsoft controls entirely (from data to binaries). One reader wrote to say to us:
Colleges running Free software in India have been asked to move to Microsoft cloud
This basically means that students will be forced to give Microsoft™ their data. Fair deal? And bear this in mind in light of Microsoft’s claims about Google. Microsoft is meanwhile attacking Android with an antitrust complaint that’s called ‘an attack on open source’, as we noted the other day. Hypocrisy here is impossible to overlook.
The FSF, to its credit, has started this action which calls people to abolish Vista 8. It is an infographic (appended below) and it says: “Sometimes, proprietary software actually helps us fight for freedom. Windows 8 is so bad it’s almost funny–it’s not only proprietary software full of spyware and security vulnerabilities, but it’s also confusing for would-be users. Lucky for us, Microsoft’s spectacular failure is the perfect time to help people switch to free software.”
Given what Microsoft has done with UEFI, this is getting more difficult, but there are those who try to help. This new article says: “The UEFI boot specification offers new capabilities – and new headaches if you aren’t ready for it.”
Fortunately there is an antitrust complaint about it. █
___
* The said infrastructure is very Microsoft-reliant, even if the articles about it don’t say so. I know this as a customer for 13 years (RBS and NatWest are connected).
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04.11.13
Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Vista 8, Vista 9, Windows at 1:14 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Windows monopoly is near the cliff
Summary: OEMs are hurt by Windows and Microsoft is unable to do much to change this; gradually, migration to Linux is seen (preinstalls), so UEFI dirty tactics are too little, too late
The corporate press relays some new study from IDC about Vista 8 (Microsoft already advertises Vista 9) and Microsoft-friendly sites like ReadWrite react passionately to it, even MSBBC covers it by quoting:
Recession had also led companies to put back renewal of their PCs, IDC said.
The firm’s vice president, Bob O’Donnell, said: “Unfortunately, it seems clear that the Windows 8 launch not only didn’t provide a positive boost to the PC market, but appears to have slowed the market.”
Charles Arthur says this Microsoft-dominated sector “slumps for fourth quarter in a row,” but who is being blamed? Microsoft apologists can blame everything but Microsoft. The problem is not the recession, the problem is that companies see reason to adopt Vista 8. UEFI is not a feature. ZDNet, incidentally, says that there are calls to kill UEFI in light of antitrust complaints [1, 2]:
Hispalinux, a Spanish Linux group pushing for a European Commission probe into Microsoft’s Windows 8 Secure Boot requirements, wants all Windows 8 PC makers to outline deactivation options for the security measure.
Hispalinux, which represents 8,000 Linux users, first filed a complaint with Europe’s competition commission late last month.
According to the complaint seen by ZDNet, it has demanded a preliminary injunction that forces Microsoft to remove all wording that requires hardware makers to implement UEFI Secure Boot to gain ‘Windows 8 Hardware Certification’. The group accuses Microsoft of using this certification to maintain its monopoly and stifling Linux.
UEFI restricted boot is the last attempt — however desperate — to depress GNU/Linux growth. Microsoft fails to convince OEMs to sell devices with Vista 8 and Microsoft even tried to enter the hardware business without success (Surface is a huge failure despite a lot of marketing), except when it comes to selling peripherals like “Microsoft”-branded keyboards which are made by other companies. Here is a rant about what Microsoft did to keyboards:
In my dreams, I have keyboards like this at every desk This is a model M13, a sturdy IBM model M with a trackpoint. In reality, they cost $200 on Ebay and the ones you can get over at Unicomp have white keys, a not so graceful logo and an infuriating set of Windows keys. Clickey Keyboards is always sold out.
On Tablets there is no Windows key. The only key is usually the power button and optionally volume controls. This is the future and this is how Windows is getting phased out. █
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