Not the first time the Burton Group goes batting for Microsoft

A few days ago we stated and warned that the Microsoft 'spin factory' was reaching high peaks. Sam Varghese calls it a "propaganda war", which is a term that suits some characteristics of what we have witnessed. Numerous well-known (even infamous) propaganda techniques have been systematically used by Microsoft, which appears to have absolutely no guilt about stooping this low. Microsoft has seemingly-independent partners professionals join the discussion.

The arguments put forward by the Burton group do not hold much water - OOXML is not anti-competitive, it will become more widespread in use (due to the widespread use of Microsoft Office), ODF is driven by anti-Microsoft sentiment more than any technical merit, etc. Sun Microsystems comes in for quite a bit of bashing.

A report that attacks the motives of one side and downplays sheer abuse and corruption of the other is no real report. As we showed earlier, this is just part of a more extensive disinformation campaign and it appears to be coming from a proxy with vested interests that include SharePoint and other Microsoft technologies. Burton even attends Microsoft events where it preaches about it. This turns out to be an embarrassment to analysts as a whole, as if it wasn't bad enough already. ⬆

Self praise with the marionette (aka sockpuppet) technique