Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Accused of Lying About Market Share

Imagine that!

Market share report - a pie chart



Summary: If Microsoft lies about market share to the courts, imagine how much it can lie to the public

THE EU Web browsers case, which we last wrote about a couple of days ago, has the following issue arise:

Microsoft accused over web browser figures



Microsoft has "substantially understated" its share of the browser market in its effort to combat charges by Europe's antitrust watchdog that it illegally ties its Explorer browser to its Windows operating system, opponents of the US software company are alleging.


For Microsoft to allegedly influence statistics this would not be the first. See for example:



According to Microsoft's CEO, GNU/Linux has a greater share than Apple on the desktop. Macs are only popular in developed countries, so it is easy for US-based firms to obtain a narrow picture and for others in the west to actually believe it.

"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]

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