Co-authored with G. Forbes

Summary: Vista Phony 7 [sic] numbers under the microscope

Almost two months have passed since the mediocre Vista Phony 7 was released to apathetic crowds. Regardless of this negative reception, Microsoft has not yet failed in the lucrative smart phone market. That is, if the expensive and deceiving PR is to be believed. Deductive reasoning, however, proves that Microsoft is being ostensible. Despite managing to put just over a million VP7 units inside warehouses during this time period, reports from Microsoft boosters, such as this one and and this one, suggest that there are somehow shortages of the phones. The logical conclusion is that Microsoft is pulling the routine of reporting yet another fake 'shortage' of one of their products.

Not unexpectedly, Mary Jo Foley perpetuates this lie while confusing readers with PR until the update to her post arrives. As an aside, Mary has also been heckling the Linux competition, apparently not content with just promoting one more Microsoft deception.

Dave Methvin on the other hand, who has consistently been more interested in the truth rather than in Microsoft's own interests, calls this "Phony Phone Numbers". He writes: "Why do people always assume the worst when a company doesn't reveal its numbers? Mainly because when a company has a big success, they're more than happy to open up the spreadsheets and crow about what they've done. Microsoft is no different in this respect, bragging that they sold more than 2.5 million Kinect units for their Xbox line of game controllers in less than 30 days last month."

As we indicated above, KINect has also been declared by "sold-out" Microsoft. The separate post of ours discusses that fake shortage as well as the lack of success of Microsoft's other marketing gimmicks. ⬆