05.04.09

Microsoft’s Twitter AstroTurf Continues

Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Marketing, Microsoft, Vista 7 at 8:06 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Microsoft vultures in Twitterland

Summary: Past and present Microsoft employees spread the Microsoft love (and Linux hate) at Twitter while Microsoft-hired agencies are watching from above

Microsoft’s well-known mouthpiece and former employee Michael Gartenberg is rearing his ugly head again. He is confronting/challenging people who promote GNU/Linux-powered sub-notebooks over at Twitter. Here is the new proof:

Last week we heard about the first Android-powered Netbook (which I wrote about in First Android Netbook Nothing to Write Home About). Then on Friday, analyst Michael Gartenberg, who is VP of Strategy at Interpret, and who writes frequently about consumer technology sent the following Tweet:

Is Android’s future in Netbooks? NO! of course not.

I tweeted back:

@Gartenberg Not exclusively, but I could see Android being a viable Netbook OS.

And Gartenberg replied:

@ron_miller hard to see it. not the right apps and no better than Linux. Linux Netbook return rate is huge.

Michael Gartenberg seems to be working under a new umbrella now, having worked for Microsoft (as an evil evangelist) and other places where he boosted Microsoft’s position. We have seen him shuffling several hats, but some editors seem not to know that he is one of Microsoft’s more familiar shills who publish anti-GNU/Linux articles and in his case even claimed Zune to be a success back in the days. The guy even worked directly for Microsoft (inside Microsoft) at one point, so it’s obvious how incestuous this relationship is.

We already know for a fact that Waggener Edstrom is eavesdropping on Twitter users on behalf of Microsoft and Microsoft also pays Federated Media to keep Twitter in check and get involved [1, 2]. Our reader Goblin may have caught some Microsoft AstroTurfing on Twitter, in addition to employees we know about. Here is another one:

As regulars here are aware, in between commenting on tech issues, I do like to challenge comments which I think need clarity at the very least. Heres Flanakin hes a senior development consultant for Microsoft and would like to tell you a few things about Windows 7:

“wow… the polish on Win7 RC is absolutely beautiful… some small things are astoundingly better than the beta”

“repaving my oldest machine with Win7 RC”

and whats the spec of this old PC? Two months old is it?

[...]

So I decided to give Flanakin Microwalker’s site a visit. http://michaelflanakin.com/ heres a snippet of what he has to say there:

“I’m an open source advocate, when it makes sense, and have a strong software engineering and architecture background.”

“Open source advocate,” eh? Anything like this type of creature? As a side note, if anyone is interested, I have an account on Identi.ca and also on Twitter.

In other news, Goblin also said goodbye to Joe Wilcox, who is leaving Microsoft Watch unmanned.

This is one of the posts Ive written on OpenBytes where Im genuinely saddened. Today (highlighted by Roy from Boycott Novell) marked the end of Joe Wilcox on Eweek.

This is part of a series of departing Microsoft watchers, including Todd Bishop who defected from the Seattle P-I to a startup called TechFlash. He gives a list of some other departures that we've kept track of.

Thursday, Joe Wilcox announced his departure from Microsoft Watch, which he took over in 2006 following Mary Jo Foley’s departure. He doesn’t go into detail but writes that he’s joining “the swelling ranks of journalists smitten by the economic crisis and by changes the Internet is forcing on my profession.” I’ll miss Joe’s reporting on the site, and it will be interesting to see what eWeek does with it.

Another recently departed Microsoft beat reporter is Ben Romano, who left the Seattle Times to become U.S. correspondent for Recharge, a trade journal covering renewable energy. He has been replaced by Sharon Chan, a veteran of the Seattle newspaper.

It remains to be seen if Microsoft announces more layoffs tomorrow. To enhance the spin factor, Microsoft will keep twitting away. █

“Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!”

–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

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Microsoft’s ODF ‘Support’ is a Scam

Posted in Deception, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard at 7:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Just a PR campaign

Summary: ODF support in Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 is a fail, fail, fail, and fail

Microsoft’s so-called ‘support’ for ODF is worse than no support at all. Why, who didn’t see that coming? The seminal analysis which is very comprehensive comes from an IBM employee, Rob Weir. Among the many things that he wrote:

We’ll probably also hear that 100% compatibility with legacy documents is critical to Microsoft users and that it is dangerous to try to save Excel formulas into interoperable ODF formulas because there is no guarantees that OpenOffice or any other ODF application will interpret them the same as Excel does. So one might try to claim that Microsoft is protecting their customers by preventing them from saving interoperable spreadsheet formulas. But we should note that fully-licensed Microsoft Office users have already been creating legacy documents in ODF format, using the Microsoft/CleverAge ODF Add-in. These paying Microsoft Office customers will now see their existing investment in ODF documents, created using Microsoft-sanctioned code, get corrupted when loaded in Excel 2007 SP2. Why are paying Microsoft customers who used ODF less important than Microsoft customers who used OOXML? That is the shocking thing here, the way in which users of the ODF Add-in are being sacrificed.

Groklaw too has made some fine arguments throughout the day (article and comments), so we won’t be repeating them. Here is just a portion:

I tried the updated Microsoft Office 2007 SP2, which supports ODF, or says it does. I created a document in Office 2007 SP2 and saved it as ODF. I got an ominous Microsoft warning that if I persisted, I might lose some formatting — “Document [name] may contain features that are not compatible with this format. Do you want to continue to save in this format?” — but it saved the document when I clicked Yes. I reasoned that OpenOffice, which I intended to use to test the result, does have the features I wanted. I had included one footnote, a photo, and a text block, all of which OpenOffice can do, but when I opened the saved document in OpenOffice, none of it looked right. You couldn’t read the footnote at all, because it’s cut horizontally in the middle of the text. You can see it’s there, but you can’t make out the words.

I thought most of the problems, and there were others, might be my fault though, because I’ve never used Office 2007 before, since I don’t own it, and I found it very confusing. Because I don’t own Office 2007, and I had limited access time to test on someone else’s, I looked around to see if anyone else was reporting results in the new SP2. I asked Groklaw members if they had tried it out yet and how it worked for them. A Groklaw member, Dobbo, did a test working on a spreadsheet with a client, and his experience was also a failure.

Regarding this Microsoft ODF “interoperability”, says one reader of ours: “[it] shows well how Microsoft sees interoperability. I suppose, with this, they can, in a very narrow and technical sense, claim ODF support. They certainly violate the spirit of ODF by not interoperating with other prominent implementations like OpenOffice.”

“…Microsoft will make a lot of noise to pretend that it supports ODF and only give it a very bad name and discourage its use…”As we’ve warned right from the beginning, Microsoft will make a lot of noise to pretend that it supports ODF and only give it a very bad name and discourage its use while giving CIOs reasons never to dump Microsoft Office for lack of ODF support (no matter the level of support). Microsoft is doing it all in a hurry to just drop an “ODF” label on the box and then use the likes of Waggener Edstrom to make loads of noise (like never seen before) and associate Microsoft’s Office with ODF ‘support’.

If this rush job sounds like a familiar trick, it ought to. Rather than support ODF right from the start Microsoft hurried up with its phony format and shoved it down ISO’s throat using plenty of corruption. Alan Lord has just explained this pretty wellin his Web site:

Microsoft implemented OOXML (their XML based file format which is essentially a binary dump of the memory footprint of your document wrapped in an amazingly obscure and illegible XML schema) in Office 2007. You may have even received the odd file with a .docx or .xlsx extension. Then some kind of panic happened in MS and they decided that because Governments and other public bodies were asking for ODF (ISO/IEC 26300 Open Document Format supported by many applications including OpenOffice.org) they’d better get OOXML standardised too. So in a rush job, Microsoft’s specification publicist ECMA took the format used on Office 2007, got the developer documentation and wrote a bit more stuff around it and published it as ECMA 376. It then got submitted to the ISO for “fast tracking”.

As Tony Manco stated earlier, Microsoft now “wants to try and shape ODF, the same thing they tried to do with the Internet.”

Another anonymous reader described (hypothetically) what Microsoft will say next:

“Hey! Look! We support ODF too (kind of), so you can keep buying MS Office!”

OR

‘Of course. “See. ODF is broken, so use OOXML instead.”‘

Microsoft has already said that ODF files are "corrupt".

The anonymous reader adds: “The question is, are they doing this in a way that leaves them open for another EU investigation?

Truth be told, Microsoft’s pseudo ODF ‘support’ is placeholder to prevent defections away from Microsoft Office, so it is even worse than not supporting ODF at all. It creates an illusion and harms the reputation of ODF. It also stifles interoperability.

Microsoft’s stunt may be intended to drive people to OOXML and make ODF interoperability look poor. What is OOXML for anyway? Here is one good answer to this question:

If, they follow that statement through, it means OOXML will only work for compatibility with previous versions of office documents and this stops at MSOfiice 2007.

Of course it is easy to rewrite the charter, as it is only words. However, a charter sets the guideline and scope for one’s work, in agreement with a third party. That is why people do not like to alter the charter. Think about a charter like the consitution for the group, it can be amended if there is consensus, but should not be attempted with great caution, i.e., much greater care than amending a rule.

Microsoft’s business model is based strongly on making other people’s software unable to interact with Microsoft’s. Why would Microsoft change its ways now that it faces a crisis and may announce more layoffs tomorrow? █

“In one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn’t force Office users to use our browser. This Is wrong and I wanted to correct this.”

–Bill Gates [PDF]

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NSW (Australia) Didn’t Choose Free Software Because It Doesn’t Run Non-Free Software???

Posted in Australia, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Vista 7, Windows at 6:36 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Lame excuse for rejection of GNU/Linux for schools (it does not run Photoshop)

SOME WEEKS ago we sought answers for the NSW blunder down under. Why did they reject GNU/Linux after years of praising the platform? Well, the following new article provides one possible explanation from those in charge:

Another major issue was Linux’s ability to run Adobe software, which NSW secondary students will have access to thanks to a $20 million deal as part of the computers program.

“Adobe doesn’t run well on Linux,” Mr Wilson said.

Wine compatibility aside, that’s like saying teachers will not prevent children from purchasing tobacco because this may prevent them from realising the thrills of alcohol. The solution is to cut both products until those affected grow up and can make their own informed decisions rather than have things imposed on them. It is unethical to force students to become customers of whoever the authorities collude with. Adobe’s addiction/extortion racket makes it even more tasteless.

So what else can be said?

NSW chose an operating system from 2001, despite the many known deficiencies, some of which are critical.

For those who believe that Vista 7 will be all fine and dandy, here are a couple of brand-new essays which are worth reading:

i. Windows 7 on an entry level netbook: first look

I loaded PassMark’s PerformanceTest 7.0 benchmarking software which evaluated the Acer Aspire One, under Windows 7.0, at 204.2. As with the Windows rating, the hard drive was the star performer and the video card was the weak spot, rendering complex 3D graphics at an uninspiring 2.3 frames per second.

ii. New threat to Windows 7?

We’ve had the issue of the “starter” 3 app version of Windows 7. We’ve had allegations of Win 7 being a spruced up Vista (or lipstick on a pig) We’ve had the EU getting involved in the distribution of IE within the Windows platform, but more than that, we’ve had many users/Enterprise not wanting to move from XP. (We dont need to mention Vista again here that, IMO is best forgotten)

Vista was all lipstick, so its successor, Vista 7, may as well be a swine on a lipstick. █

Morbidly obese swine on a lipstick needs to go on a diet

“My initial evaluation of Windows 7 shows that it’s really just Vista with a fresh coat of paint.”

–Randall Kennedy

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Red Hat: We Should Probably Look at Switching out Tomboy with Gnote in the Fedora 12 Panel Configuration

Posted in GNOME, GNU/Linux, Mono, Novell, Red Hat at 6:06 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Fedora might get rid of Tomboy and have Gnote replace it

TONY MANCO has just found this interesting part of an ongoing thread in the Fedora Desktop mailing list, where a Red Hat employee says:

We should probably look at switching out tomboy with gnote in the f12 panel configuration. Not sure what to do about upgrades, though. Obsoleting tomboy wouldn’t be right…

Fedora has already removed Tomboy from the Cambridge Live CD, so Gnote would be a good fit. Gnote is already entering Fedora, but it will be more interesting to see if it totally displaces Tomboy (and dethrones Mono) in the process. █

“There is a substantive effort in open source to bring such an implementation of .Net to market, known as Mono and being driven by Novell, and one of the attributes of the agreement we made with Novell is that the intellectual property associated with that is available to Novell customers.”

–Bob Muglia, Microsoft President

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Links 04/05/2009: Mandriva Rave, Eucalyptus Funded

Posted in News Roundup at 5:50 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day

Steve Weber, creator of the phrase “anti-rival goods” 01 (2005)

Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

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Is Microsoft About to Announce More Layoffs?

Posted in Microsoft, Rumour at 11:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Rumours from a reliable source suggest the analysts were right and additional layoffs come tomorrow

LAST MONTH we wrote about seemingly reliable claims that Microsoft was looking into further layoffs [1, 2]. The abysmal results which came soon afterwards (earnings down 32%) justified this and the Web is now abuzz over the Microsoft-bred message which says: “Rumors of more Microsoft layoffs being announced on May 5th. Lots of panic in the employee base.“

That’s tomorrow. Todd Bishop has some more details.

We received a tip last week, from a usually reliable person, that Microsoft would be making more job cuts this week. The company so far isn’t commenting, and we haven’t been able to get confirmation elsewhere. But independent of our inquiries, the online buzz increased over the weekend to the point that Microsoft employees will no doubt be a little nervous when they check their email tomorrow morning.

We’ll keep readers updated as more information unfolds, if any. █

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Did Microsoft Hire Consumer Watchdog to Attack Google?

Posted in Google, Marketing, Microsoft at 8:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Rent a bulldog

Summary: A look beneath the surface reveals that ConsumerWatchdog.org is “the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights”, which is affiliated with/derived from Grassroots Enterprise, a Washington/SF-based AstroTurfer for hire

FOR A verifiable fact, Microsoft is the biggest lobbying monster in its area. Someone has just informed us that ConsumerWatchdog.org is apparently a lobby used by Microsoft (mostly to attack Google), so we decided to investigate this. Having already found some Microsoft-backed anti-Google lobbies in the past [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], we took a look at this latest company’s background and dug a lot deeper. Let’s see what ConsumerWatchdog.org says about Microsoft and what ConsumerWatchdog.org has to say about Google. What a striking difference.

Looking at ConsumerWatchdog.org using enhanced tools (the likes of them sometimes use services like DomainsByProxy.com), we find the following record:

Domain ID:D863261-LROR
Domain Name:CONSUMERWATCHDOG.ORG
Created On:03-Jun-1997 04:00:00 UTC
Last Updated On:07-Jun-2008 00:26:36 UTC
Expiration Date:02-Jun-2010 04:00:00 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com, Inc. (R91-LROR)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Registrant ID:GODA-044511122
Registrant Name:Doug Heller
Registrant Organization:Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rig
Registrant Street1:1750 Ocean Park Blvd.
Registrant Street2:Ste 200
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City:Santa Monica
Registrant State/Province:California
Registrant Postal Code:90405
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.3103920522
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email:webmaster@consumerwatchdog.org
Admin ID:GODA-244511122
Admin Name:Doug Heller
Admin Organization:Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rig
Admin Street1:1750 Ocean Park Blvd.
Admin Street2:Ste 200
Admin Street3:
Admin City:Santa Monica
Admin State/Province:California
Admin Postal Code:90405
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.3103920522
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email:doug@consumerwatchdog.org
Tech ID:GODA-144511122
Tech Name:Domain Direct
Tech Organization:TUCOWS.com Inc.
Tech Street1:96 Mowat Avenue
Tech Street2:
Tech Street3:
Tech City:Toronto
Tech State/Province:Ontario
Tech Postal Code:M6K3M1
Tech Country:CA
Tech Phone:+1.4165350123
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:+1.4165315584
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email:dnstech@domaindirect.com
Name Server:NS1.GRASSROOTS.COM
Name Server:NS2.GRASSROOTS.COM

See that last bit? It’s important. Consumerwatchdog.org is linked to Grassroots.com, which is Grassroots Enterprise.

Grassroots Enterprise is not about grassroots. It’s about AstroTurfing. Sourcewatch wrote:

According to the company’s web site, Grassroots Enterprise, Inc., led by its CEO, John Hlinko, “combines online technology and communications strategy to help our clients achieve their public affairs objectives. Our proprietary technology Grassroots Multiplier® uses the Internet to centralize and simplify the recruitment, management, and mobilization of our clients’ supporters – employees, members, customers, vendors and other stakeholders who can grow into a long-term asset to our clients’ business.”

It’s a business. It hires people to do jobs for companies (clients).

According to Wikipedia, “Consumer Watchdog (USA), [is] an organization which advocates for taxpayer and consumer interests in the United States,” but it also states that it is “formerly the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.” So they change names; that’s what companies and lobbies typically do when they get exposed or absorb a bad reputation. It’s a well known and basic strategy in PR.

Oiaohm found out that the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (aka Consumerwatchdog.org) even has a subsite on Grassroots.com. Why is this not surprising? They probably just try to escape the obvious affiliation which would be damaging to their credibility. Lobbyists tend to have multiple umbrellas, which make them runaway targets. See for example Jonathan Zuck, who seems to have turned ATL into ACT after it had been exposed massively (think about fake letters from dead people).

Going back to Grassroots Enterprise, watch just what they boast about:

Are you ready to get your volunteers and members to mobilize the vote for you in 2008?

With the Grassroots Multiplier℠ PhoneTheVote application, they can actually be mobile as they mobilize. This innovative alternative to traditional phonebanks gives your activists and volunteers the ability to carry a powerful political application right in their pocket!

Grassroots Multiplier℠ PhoneTheVote takes the traditional phone bank into the web 2.0 generation by empowering your stakeholders to log on and make phone calls on your behalf — for get out the vote efforts, fundraising, grassroots mobilization, or just for rapid dissemination of information.

With Grassroots Multiplier℠ PhoneTheVote your volunteer callers can be directed to make calls wherever they are need — by geographic location, demographic, political affiliation, or any number of categories. Your volunteers can also be given dynamically generated “just-in-time” customized phone scripts to maximize their impact. And best of all, the information that the volunteers collect is feed into a central database in real time.

They brag about AstroTurfing patents/trademarks, just like the ones from Waggener Edstrom. How deep can this really go? █

Microsoft AstroTurf stories:

• The Microsoft Connection with Dewey Square Group and DCI/New Media
• Microsoft ‘Bribes’ Mac Bloggers to Slam Apple, Gartner Hosts Google FUD
• Microsoft, TCS, DCI, Edelman, and Those Fake Letters About IP/SCO/Monopoly
• James Plamondon: Microsoft Guerrilla
• FullSIX and Mr. Youth LLC May Be Ruining the Web (AstroTurfing) on Microsoft’s Behalf
• Microsoft: 800 lb. Guerrilla
• Astroturfing Examples: Learning How Microsoft Tames the Internet
• Waggener Edstrom, Maureen O’Gara and Other Microsoft Shills
• Partial Index: Summary of Bribed Sites, Journalists, and Bloggers (Vista 7)
• Waggener-Edstrom Behind the 2008 Laptop Bribes, Edelman Behind 2006′s
• Manipulation, Astroturfing, and What Governments Can Do
• Beware the OOXML AstroTurfer: “The Wraith”, “multivac1”, “hAl”, Among Other Nyms
• Microsoft May Have Bribed India for OOXML Pressure
• Microsoft Has Been Rigging Votes/Polls for Ages
• Gary M. Stewart (aka “Flatfish”) About Microsoft AstroTurfing: “It’s made me A LOT of money….”
• Former Microsoft Shill Openly Confesses, Alleges Microsoft Still Does This
• Respecting AstroTurfers?
• Some New (But Very Old) Microsoft AstroTurfing Examples
• Joe Barr, Linux.com Editor – My Obituary
• Joe Barr Knew Microsoft’s Tactics All Too Well
• 66 Pages of Microsoft Evilness
• Another AstroTurf Scam Exposed?
• Quick Mention: Sony is AstroTurfing, Just Like Microsoft
• Memo to Novell: Leave YouTube Alone
• Microsoft Blast from the Past: Ads Banned for Spurring Violence
• Is YouTube’s “NovellVideo” a Novell AstroTurfer?
• Microsoft/Munchkin ‘Breaks’ the Web to Break Open Document Standards (Again)
• Rob Enderle Guarantees “Amazing Numbers”, Show E-mails to Microsoft
• Microsoft Agents from Waggener Edstrom Airbrush Wikipedia, Glorify Paymaster
• Microsoft Unleashes Proxies at Journalists to Defend Vulnerable Vista
• Microsoft’s OOXML Viral Marketing Reaches YouTube

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Microsoft Fights to Make GNU/Linux a Fringe Phenomenon

Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Windows at 4:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: How Microsoft is trying to marginalise GNU/Linux and the extent to which demoralising lies are used as a tool

AN EFFECTIVE TOTALITARIAN regime operates by identifying sources of existing dissent (or brewing dissent) and then eliminating them. Microsoft works very similarly and its so-called "Linux Heat Map" is indication of this. The company maintains a sort of “battle map” which tells the company where attacks against GNU/Linux ought to be coordinated and which large-scale migrations predatory targeted. We saw a lot of this recently and a notable old example is South Africa.

This is not affecting only GNU/Linux and Free software. Microsoft has been trying to suppress its competition at childhood phases for as long as it has held a dominant market position. We already have a partial list of projects/companies that Microsoft strangled at birth, but the strategy strategy can work against commercial entities with finite resources, not against Free software. It’s proving frustrating to Microsoft.

Undeterred, however, Microsoft is currently using another familiar strategy in Spain (as we last noted yesterday) and Glyn Moody got around to commenting on it:

It’s clearly born of ignorance about what is really being offered – lock-in to Microsoft’s systems – in the naive belief that touch-screens are somehow the future, probably just because the iPhone has one.

It is born of arrogance that the government knows better, and therefore needn’t consult with others that might have a view or – heaven forfend – knowledge on the subject.

And it’s born of sheer stupidity, throwing away the huge lead that Spain had in this area, forcing local governments that had saved money by opting for GNU/Linux to waste money on an unnecessary and doubtless insecure solution from Microsoft, and as a result making the country dependent on a foreign supplier when it could have nurtured its own domestic software industry.

Microsoft is doing the same thing in Russia right now, so Slashdot has this update which says: “No [Fedora-based] Russian Operating System, At Least For Now”

“The project by 27 Russian parties to develop a National Operating System for Russia has not taken off, yet (Russian). Ilya Ponomarev, the responsible technology committee chair in the Duma, received a negative response from the government. The government argues that the project and Open Standards would not impact the society and economy. Parliament members regret the setback for Russia’s digital independence. Ponomarev wants to find other interested partners in the Government now.”

This says nothing about what Microsoft has just done, despite the fact that the cited article has a photo of Steve Ballmer. According to Microsoft’s “Linux Heat Map”, Russia is one of the leading countries in terms of GNU/Linux uptake. Needless to say, so-called Web statistics from Microsoft-sponsored entities are hiding all this by measuring adoption of GNU/Linux using hostile methods or biased populations (data sets). We wrote about the "1% market share" lie just a couple of days ago and we urge people never to propagate this lie or else it would become complacently true in the minds of many people, ISVs included. Here is an interesting new press release (also found here):

The percentage of Linux users among the MEDUSA4 Personal audience varies significantly from country to country, and totals approximately 35%. While in Germany, the top download location, about 13% of users work with Linux, in Italy, the second largest download group, Linux users outnumber Windows users by nearly three to one.

This shows that populations play a huge role.

In the first three days of May we received over 96,000 pageviews (excluding bots, by AWStats’ definition). This includes a Friday, a Saturday, and a Sunday, which means it’s mostly weekend traffic.

Among those requests, 50.4% came from “Linux”, 38.7% came from “Windows”, 5% came from “Macintosh” and some of the rest could not be parsed properly although search engines or other familiar bots are not being counted by AWStats. █

“There’s a lot of Linux out there — much more than Microsoft generally signals publicly — and their customers are using it…”

–Paul DeGroot, a Directions On Microsoft analyst

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