Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Sends Its Friend 'Analyst' Michael Silver to Bat for OOXML?

Assault of the mouthpieces

"Analysts sell out - that’s their business model... But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes them very prickly to work with."

--Microsoft, internal document



We last showed this only one week ago. The following new example will be joining many other examples [1, 2, 3, 4] and compelling proof that exposes a large-scale phenomenon called "shill analysts", or abbreviated "shillnalysts".

Noooxml.org talks about Michael Silver, but it does not seem to realise who this guy is. It speaks about the bias:

Businessweek (Jennifer L Schenker) quoted Gartner analyst Michael Silver last week who puts OOXML in a wider commercial perspective...

"appear more open". This is how Gartner views the credibility of the new openness....

Look how optimistic Gartner's Silver is...


We have covered this so many time before (see citations above), but to focus on Michael Silver for a moment, consider these:

NY Times bans Microsoft analysts from Microsoft stories

Just days after banning Enderle from discussing Microsoft because he has Microsoft as a client, the Times quoted Gartner analyst Michael Silver and AMR Research analyst Jim Murphy in a story about Microsoft's Windows and Office software.

If the paper would prefer not to quote an analyst who has experience with a client, it did a poor job. Silver is Gartner's vice president in charge of client computing. Microsoft happens to do lots of business with Gartner and also happens to have a client-software monopoly. We're guessing that Silver knows Microsoft's products well and has direct involvement with the company.

And, sure enough, he appears a number of times on Microsoft's own site and thousands of times in stories about Microsoft. Jim Murphy - wait for it - covers Microsoft too and is even more prolific than Silver.

[...]

Part of the problem stems from the reticence of companies such as IDC and Gartner to reveal their clients. That should make everyone nervous, but it doesn't. So called objective technology publications keep publishing material bought by vendors without telling you this. They're also too lazy or scared to ignore the likes of Gartner and IDC until the firms change their disclosure rules.


Also see this more recent one:

Buy Vista or die



[...]

Gartner research vice president Michael Silver said that outfits have delayed their Vista migrations to the point of stupidity and now some are considering late 2008 or even 2009, while others mull skipping the OS completely.


The following older article gives you an idea of the scale of this plague.

Research firms make their living by offering expert advice to business and technology people about the best ways to invest their IT dollars. It can be invaluable insight, but only if that analysis comes with no strings attached. And on that, there's no guarantee.

Forrester, Gartner, IDC, and others insist their output is squeaky clean, yet they also rake in millions providing services to the very same companies they monitor, heavyweights like Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. Which leads to a question that continues to dog the research firms: How much influence do technology vendors have over their work?


BusinessWeek should be ashamed of itself for approaching and accepting a comment from a Microsoft friend, without any disclosure at all. It should not have approached this person in the first place. This is an example where Microsoft controls publications by proxy -- so to speak -- rather than controlling them directly. There is another such article from IDC, which was published a few days ago to slam Linux. But that's a separate story.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
 
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
Links for the day
Google's Software is Malware and Malware in Mobile Devices
Originally posted by Rob Musial
Links 20/09/2025: Hegemony Coming to a Close, Luigi Mangione Ruled Not Terrorist
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/09/2025: "Charlie Kirk Was a Hateful Piece of Shit" and Slop Code Attempted by Microsofter
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025