Summary: Microsoft and Novell want you to feel differently (deceived) about them and their products; resources allocated to the task

Microsoft openly engages in what's known as "perception management" [1, 2]. It's a PR tactic which is akin to hypnosis and Vista 7 was a good example of it. Now watch this new post from Novell's Ross Chevalier, suitably titled "Speak Up! What did you do to change the perception of Novell today?"

It’s not just to Product Management to handle, we all have experience, we have expertise, we have perspective so I am asking you again in this context, what can I do today to positively enhance the perception of Novell. Don’t wait for someone else to do this, we all must do it. Hit it hard and hit it often.

It was only weeks ago that Novell/SUSE created the official "OpenSUSE boosters" team, which is funny because we wrote about Novell recruiting "OpenSUSE boosters" a year and a half before the "OpenSUSE boosters" team existed. We even named it correctly.

People must understand that Novell also uses a lot of PR to defend its patent deal with Microsoft. Novell is messing with people's perception. The same goes for Mono, which is an amateur product of Novell.

It is so ironic that Novell allocates PR budgets that advance Microsoft's interests because at the same time Novell is suing Microsoft, which wants to dismiss the case. Here are some of the latest details from Groklaw:

There are more filings in the Novell v. Microsoft antitrust case over WordPerfect. Many, many more, mainly exhibits, a total of about 2,540 pages. Some exhibits themselves run to nearly 200 pages, and Novell has 158 exhibits. So, what is happening?

[...]

I see Novell has found quite a lot already. Microsoft, Hassid tells the court in his affidavit, did turn over a database, but it can't provide it to the court because it "requires special software". Perfect, no?

My other worry is that at the end of the day, all these materials will be lost, sent to the deep by some confidentiality term in an agreement. It could happen, so that I why I thought I should tell you what is happening and that I need your help to get this done thoroughly. There are some fascinating documents on the list from the Canopy/Caldera days, their litigation against Microsoft, as well as the Comes case.

I so wish all filings in civil trials, subject to confidentiality rules, would be made public for free. It's so obvious to me that people do want to know, and in a digital age, it's so easy to let the public have access to this information without having to pay an arm and a leg. It's $.08 a page, which seems very little, but when you get into thousands of pages for just one article for just one case, well, you can do math. It really adds up fast. And that just doesn't seem like the American way to me, where we have always believed in the public's right to access their court system.

Groklaw must be referring to the lost Caldera exhibits [1, 2] and Comes vs Microsoft exhibits, which Microsoft tried to bury using a secret settlement in Iowa. They must have hoped to change perception by hiding crucial evidence from the public. ⬆