09.28.10
Reddit Took Money From Microsoft to Help the IE9/Vista 7 Marketing Blitz, Which Failed
Now sponsored
by Microsoft
Summary: Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) was Microsoft’s attempt to market Vista 7, but it finally turns out that Vista 7 SP1 as a requirement is utter nonsense and Microsoft puts further limits on how many people can install Vista 7
IE9 is a disaster in the making, despite the vast marketing campaign from Microsoft. The Internet Explorer team has just lost a key part of its leadership, which quit Microsoft to join Google. This could make chairs break because “Google Will Dominate The Browser Wars,” suggests some blogger who outlines the reasons.
Joe Wilcox, formerly a strong Microsoft booster, reports “mixed reactions to IE9″ and Microsoft just seems to be busy making a better logo rather than a better Web browser (which imitates the competition in many ways). Speaking of changing logos and copying Chrome/Firefox, watch this new article which speaks of “changing the Microsoft logo to a kitten”.
“Shame on Reddit for repeating Digg’s past mistakes…”IE9 hype is not real. It’s fabricated. For those who wonder, Microsoft made heaps of publicity for it using all sorts of stunts [1, 2] and payments. At the same time, Microsoft used IE9 to advertise Vista 7, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. It’s not as though Vista 7 was the only product advertised (brought to the headlines) using some test build of IE9 or anything else. Microsoft’s test build of an unattractive HPC product (already mentioned in here) was also accompanied by Vista 7 hype. Here is an example of similar PR with HPC, surely intended just to advertise Vista 7. Never underestimate Microsoft’s PR armies. At the very end Microsoft revealed that “IE9 won’t require Windows 7 SP1″. Was it the case all along or did Microsoft really “reverse course” as its booster claims right now? Microsoft had a lot to gain by adding allure to both IE9 and Vista 7, portraying them as exceptionally modern by mutual association.
For an understanding of the artificial hype around IE9, we ought to give examples. Lots of hype about download numbers (2 million or so, with AFP playing along) came after sneaky advertising in sites like Reddit. VentureBeat now confirms that Reddit was paid by Microsoft to do this: “Rival Digg’s botched attempt at a redesign and the announcement of a Reddit-inspired rally in Washington D.C. by TV personalities Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart have bumped up the site’s numbers. Now the site has announced that the buzz has brought a new ad campaign from a very big client — Microsoft.”
Shame on Reddit for repeating Digg’s past mistakes (last mentioned 3 weeks ago). One our a readers, a regular in Reddit, wrote that it (language warning) “sounds like they’re going to lose their ABP exception entry then… also sounds like they’re going the way of /. [...] though the IE9 advertisement was thus far only in an article asking for information [...] we need a social news site that’s immune to m$, crApple and their zombies [...] i wouldn’t mind a “if you’re a m$ or crApple cultist, your ass is banned” policy on that site… i’m really tired of having to trudge through the shit posted by people without brains… and social filtering fucked up by such zombies… (not quite related, but) i stopped reading index.hu when they put IE9 ads at the top and bottom of every single fucking article… if they want to help m$ ruin the web again, fuck them… as for reddit, i’ll just wait and see”
We previously showed that Vista 7 adoption was relatively poor (Microsoft makes improper comparisons to hide this), so no wonder Microsoft tries using other products to spur Vista 7 sales. Here is the new story of someone who has just dumped Vista 7 and went back to Vista (Vista sales brought far more money to Microsoft than Vista 7 ever did).
So where did all of this get me? I upgraded a machine that met the specs for Windows 7 but that the manufacturer would not certify as Windows 7 ready. I ran the compatibility checker, which saw nothing insurmountable. It didn’t work out. Was it a bad idea to give it a shot?
“Not necessarily,” says Rudolph. “Most Vista-era computers will upgrade to Windows 7 very easily — the vast majority will.”
But not this time. Tonight I begin the process of restoring Vista. I sure hope this is the end of it.
Microsoft may have to invent some other reason/excuse for people to buy Vista 7*. IE9 just isn’t it.
What can a monopolist do? Well, Microsoft has begun limiting TechNet licences [1, 2, 3, 4], betraying some of its biggest supporters by doing so. As Pogson put it (in relation to this news), “You should use GNU/Linux. You can try as many installations as you want for the same low price, $0.”
Is Microsoft just trying to speed up its destruction? First they deny most Windows users a browser upgrade (then flip-flop) and now they limit the number of people who can use Vista 7. Times must be hard at Redmond and very soon we’ll write a post about Microsoft’s financial strains. █
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* Vista also had such excuses made up, e.g. DirectX 10, which worked fine in Windows XP after just a little fiddling.
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