Microsoft appears to have insisted on destroying court evidence depicting criminal behaviour. A few of the exhibits remained, however, and so has the following damaging correspondence which shows how Microsoft prepares its anti-GNU/Linux 'facts'.

What's cheaper than an OS you can buy outright once and install on every PC in your shop -- and upgrade cost-free for eternity to boot? Why, a slew of cheesy licenses for Microsoft Windows, 'Doze Division VP Brian Valentine claims in his latest cheerleading effort for his sales associates.

That's right; a putatively independent analysis by 'we'll-conclude-anything' whores DH Brown is going to rip Linux a new one and find that Windows is actually cheaper. How Valentine knows this is anyone's guess. Perhaps he has a mole in the Brown organization as good as the one we have in his. Or perhaps MS simply paid for it. We don't know.

It also appears that MS has bought off a number of Linux/Sun 'insiders' whose job it will be to explain to the sales team how to pitch the illusory advantages of Windows to unsuspecting IT managers. "Dumber people can run Windows" is the best advert I personally can come up with, though this is without the benefit of expensive analysts and turncoat 'insiders' to feed me intriguing tidbits.

IDC, by the way, is pretty much the same [1, 2, 3, 4]. Here is another old example of an anti-GNU/Linux 'study' from IDC. Of course it was funded by Microsoft.

Research firm IDC, in a Microsoft-funded study, has reinforced a Microsoft argument that Linux is more expensive to administer than Windows, a factor that makes Windows less expensive overall in most server uses.

There's a lot more stuff to explore here. Other analysts like Forrester and Gartner are no better. They serve Microsoft's business ambitions. That's how they make money. ⬆

"I’m thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux. [...] they should do a delicate dance"

--Joachim Kempin, Microsoft OEM Chief