Microsoft Canonical Pays IDG to Spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)
Canonical: we have paid IDG's "pay to say" department (IDC) to scare you into paying us. Fear-mongering/dramatisation below (seems like they came up with misleading and likely false statistics for "TCO" FUD).
Someone has pointed out to us this new blog post from Microsoft Canonical, which seems increasingly compromised. It speaks of "research [sic] from Canonical and The International Data Corporation (IDC)," so that means Canonical paid IDC for "pay to say" (yes, they're trying to sell something here).
"Is this one a lot of FUD?" the person asked, "or just marketeering?"
I informally responded that they're just "using fud to sell debian subs probably". Put in simple terms, Microsoft Canonical grabbed Debian, added some Microsoft stuff on top of it (and proprietary junk), now it's trying to sell this idea that for security you must move to Canonical and then purchase "Pro" or something similar. It does not take a genius to expect Canonical to use some third party, even under the guise of "research" (marketing), to help convince companies to pay other companies for some "glorified Debian". It "appears that way", said the above person, but tell us what you think, maybe in IRC. Maybe there's another factor we've overlooked?
Either way, this seems a tad exploitative and reminds us of the time Novell kept telling companies that using anything other than SUSE was dangerous (in other words, pay Microsoft for unnamed software patents to get "protection"). █
Related: What Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Can to Remedy the Damage Done to Frans Pop's Family | MS (Mark Shuttleworth) as a Microsoft Salesperson