Meg Whitman talks nonsense

Author: Max Morse

Summary: HP says Microsoft is a rival, but evidence suggests that HP is being occupied by Microsoft managers and that it attacks GNU/Linux, not Windows

People should not be taking HP's claims at face value. Realising what the cash cows are, HP is trying to sell as many servers as possible (many will use GNU/Linux), so it tries to appeal to system administrators while quietly spreading Microsoft's anti-GNU/Linux FUD [1, 2] to derail government migrations to GNU/Linux. Perhaps the inefficiently of Windows helps sell more such servers (for the same task).

Either way, HP sure is suffering from the decline of Microsoft's desktop empire, but publicly HP wants us to think that "Microsoft Is At War With Its OEM Partners" (such as HP). More "sock puppetry," calls it iophk, saying that "Microsoft Hilf is still inside HP, Ray Ozzie is still on the board, so this is just noise." There are more such examples, including Vice Presidents. HP is gradually becoming somewhat of a proxy to Microsoft -- a bit like Nokia.

Microsoft is hardly a competitor of HP; those two are partners and actions at the management level show this. Here is another article which blindly repeats HP's claims:

APPARENTLY NOT CONTENT with making her employees draw lots or arm-wrestle for desks by banning telecommuting, HP CEO Meg Whitman has decided to let loose the hounds on Microsoft, declaring that it and Intel have changed from being "partners to outright competitors".

HP is still using x86 and Windows, so how are Intel and Microsoft competitors really? Sheer nonsense.

Speaking of Microsoft and pretense, the company pretended to be "nice" to FOSS while essentially banning particular FOSS licence -- an action which it quietly steps away from:

With little fanfare, Microsoft — or at least one part of it — has gone from considering the GNU General Public License v.3 (GPLv3) "evil" to "acceptable."

That's because this licence is popular, unlike Microsoft. "A company spokesperson didn't provide a direct answer," says Microsoft Mary, whose inquiry helps show just how Microsoft really feels about the GPLv3. Public statements are the area controlled by marketing people and professional spinners. In order to find out what's true we need to investigate actions -- not words -- for ourselves. ⬆