03.16.09
Gemini version available ♊︎Microsoft Wants War: Starts Blatantly Attacking Critics with Cowardly Attacks via Employers
Microsoft’s Latest Smear Campaigns Against FOSS Proponents
Summary: National Microsoft CEO attacks critic, contacts boss too (part of a pattern)
IF you write critically about Microsoft, then Microsoft may be ‘kind’ enough to contact your boss and try to get you in trouble (maybe even fired). We know this from a couple of new victims, whose names and nationalities we keep off the record so as to not aggravate it further.
“One person suspects that Vivek Kundra may be the latest case of high-level retribution.”The first story story is that a national manager of Microsoft has threatened, personally, a critic of the company’s policies and attacked the person through the employer. We have actually heard a similar story from 2 people in the past week, but not in both cases was a Microsoft manager (local CEO) directly involved.
Having written critically about Microsoft, writes one person to us, “this got me in a world of shit… but it was worth it. Or I hope it was. It remains to be seen.
“The CEO of Microsoft [country name omitted] called me up on [...] and had a very long talk with me about how naughty I was. The first fifteen minutes he was all, “this is lies!” .. then he slowly changed the tone to “you shouldn’t underestimate what good we’ve done” [...] and then, at the end of it, I managed to pin him to the wall, and he kind of backed off after that.
“And then [he] called my boss.”
Remember Peter Quinn? One person suspects that Vivek Kundra may be the latest case of high-level retribution. “This looks like it might be worse retribution than what happened to Peter Quinn,” wrote a reader to us one hour ago. But in this particular case, no proof exists.
Anyway, this would be typical Microsoft behaviour. For details, see for example:
- Microsoft Smear Campaigns in India: Watch and Be Disgusted
- OOXML Defeated Easily in India; Microsoft in Hot Water in New Zealand Over Smear Campaign
- “If you Can’t Deny the Truth, Run a Smear Campaign” (Updated)
- Bullying, Intimidation and Smears, Courtesy of Microsoft
- Microsoft Launches “Get the Facts”-esque Smear Campaign Against ODF and OOXML’s Critics
- Smear Campaign Against Boycott Novell (Updated)
More examples (external links):
- Windows DRM: A Response to the Disinformation (Peter Gutmann)
- Life Is Complicated (Tim Bray)
- Intimidation (Pamela Jones)
- Ethics (Pamela Jones)
- A Microsoft Slur in the OOXML Saga — Did I Tell You or Did I Tell You? (Mathew Holloway)
- Microsoft Says Worker Wrote Smear of Rival
There is another incident we had reported to us, but the details are too sensitive and would lead to a risk of exposure.
What is Microsoft so scared of? Well surely, as one reader explains, “here’s some old news, but maybe worth bringing up again. Deploying FOSS, would be the functional equivalent of a major double-digit billion dollar economic stimulus plan:
- Linux Kernel Worth $1.4 Billion
- Open source Linux worth billions, Microsoft warned
- Estimating the Total Development Cost of a Linux Distribution
“In the case of Fedora, it would be the equivalent of $ 11 billion USD,” says the reader. This is a lot of money and Microsoft is set to lose the most. But for Microsoft to turn to personal attacks against critics is utterly disgusting. And it’s part of a long, ongoing pattern. █
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G. Michaels said,
March 16, 2009 at 3:00 pm
So… you have no proof of this. None whatsoever?
And of course your “readers” are sure up there in the credibility index.
David Gerard said,
March 16, 2009 at 8:16 pm
G. Michaels – as listed in the links, they have a track record.
(A G. Michaels comment? This article wins a point.)
And to think this is the sort of behaviour Scientology is better known for.
G. Michaels said,
March 17, 2009 at 1:30 am
David Gerard. What a rare pleasure. A rare pleasure indeed. Still canvassing wannabe sysops to pay for play at AxD? Oh, no. No, you’re past that now, of course. How silly of me. ArbCom and all that, the hollowed halls of power and beyond. Haven’t seen your user page in a while, I assume you’re still flaunting your princely powers there? The go-getter behind the throne of Wales, lots of name dropping, WP:THIS and WP:THAT, inside jokes about the cabal and so on. What a hoot, as always. Making sure one of the most precious resources in the history of humanity is well stuffed with bureaucratic idiocy and petty power struggles – because that’s what makes us feel superior to the unwashed masses, eh?
As for track record, of course. No need for accuracy when you are Right (TM) and the evildoers have a track record. How silly of me.
But anyhoo, fancy seeing you here, although not entirely surprising given the kind of company BoycottBoy keeps. I should stop by one of these days and say hi, look over what they’re deleting, what guidelines they’re rewriting to help the non-existent cabals (how are those Israel articles doing, btw… Slim and Jayjg still pounding away or did they manage to finally obliterate everyone?), who’s being lovingly shafted by ArbCom, when are we getting the next Essjay, etc. Anyway, I really should stop by. It’s been a while. Well, best regards as always.
David Gerard said,
March 17, 2009 at 8:50 am
And this echoes Slashdot comments. Looks like I’m on the radar. w00t!
G. Morons said,
March 17, 2009 at 9:54 am
G. Michaels, you’re a moron.
Roy Schestowitz said,
March 17, 2009 at 11:42 am
He’s here only to cause trouble. It’s a vandal.
Eruaran said,
March 18, 2009 at 8:09 am
If G. Michaels wants evidence, I suggest he risk his own job (if he even works in IT at all) rather than expect others to risk theirs to flatter his ego.
Go on then, get to it. Promote FOSS, give people a real choice, put it in your advertising, openly criticise Microsoft in publicly available material.
I guarantee you’ll get your evidence soon enough.
Needs Sunlight said,
March 21, 2009 at 8:04 am
G. Michaels and his ilk are simple there to make noise and try It looks like it to drag others down to his level and forget the topic in favor of sqwabbling.
In review, it looks like it was a smear, after all:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/chief-information-officer-is-quietly-reinstated/?hp
G. Michaels said,
April 6, 2009 at 12:59 am
As I have continually asked your hero, I would eat my crow and like it if I were *ever* shown a *single* shred of evidence that Eeevil Microsoft is now or has ever specifically targeted him or any of you in any way, shape or form.
Isn’t it fascinating that none of you can come up with something like that? A request so simple, considering the fact that all of you make those claims a central part of your decidedly unpalatable advocacy efforts? Roy’s nymshifter friend from Slashdot has the exact same problem. It’s uncanny, really.
And David. Please understand that I don’t dislike you personally. I think you are a rather bright and intelligent person. In reality I consider you a symptom of the disease that affects Wikipedia, nothing more. Perhaps I was a bit overboard there, so I was actually going to offer a belated apology until I saw your response. I don’t know what kind of problem you might have on Slashdot, but I’m sure you’ll be disappointed to learn that I didn’t even know you had an account there until tonight when I went looking for it. I’m not sure what kind of comments you’re referring to, and I wouldn’t care to speculate on who is posting them, but I wouldn’t be surprised that someone over there would insult or attack you, given how much disruption and bad blood people like you have wreaked on Wikipedia. But the idiotic “oh you see how they’re after me” cop-out in the style of BoycottBoy and twitter and his whole cadre I honestly did not expect from you.
Sorry for the lag here, by the way. Apparently Microsoft doesn’t pay me enough to post during the week, so it’s only Sundays once the kid has been put to bed. I should really ask for more money
Dave said,
April 6, 2009 at 4:50 am
Is this the story again of the guy who told a Microsoft representative that he wanted a free sample (zune?) article and if het would not get one het would write a negative article on Microsoft ?
People like that should be fired