Bonum Certa Men Certa

Manufacturing Propaganda in Microsoft-funded Circles to Belittle FOSS and Magnify Microsoft

Summary: Some timely examples of facts being abandoned and an alternative reality being introduced by Microsoft-funded firms and lobbyists

FOR nearly 8 years we have focused on tackling FUD and showing where the FUD came from. Public perceptions and truths (objective facts) are an abyss apart when massive PR agencies do what they're paid to do, which is to screw with public perceptions and drive the population further away from the truth (for a profit).



In Microsoft's parallel universe, only the desktop counts and GNU/Linux is still somewhat of an underdog with 1% market share. Microsoft relies on corruptible voices to spread such myths and it is improperly counting share in other areas, not just on desktops/laptops.

Charlie Demerjian, whom Microsoft tried to corrupt with some freebies (he declined), has published this long article titled "Microsoft is now irrelevant to computing, and they want you to know it" (highly recommended read).

To quote one portion: "With two major cave-ins in the past few weeks, Microsoft is screaming at the top of its lungs about how irrelevant it is. If you didn’t understand the fall of Microsoft from powerful monopolist to computing afterthought, let SemiAccurate explain it to you.

"For the past few decades, Microsoft has been a monopoly with one game plan, leverage what they have to exclude competition. If someone had a good idea, Microsoft would come out with a barely functional copy, give it away, and shut out the income stream of the innovator. Novell, Netscape, Pen, and countless others were crushed by this one dirty trick, and the hardware world bowed to Redmond’s whims."

Here is more: "Competition was likewise non-existent, anyone that tried was shut out of new PCs, shut out of interoperability, had revenues devastated by free offerings from Microsoft, and many other similar monopoly games. Microsoft was the proverbial fat and lazy behemoth that was quite content to count their money and turn screws on customers whenever they needed more. If you doubt the seriousness of this stagnation, ask yourself what the last innovation Microsoft came up with was, not evolution but true innovation. I can’t think of any either."

Here is the part about GNU/Linux: "Similarly with Linux, Microsoft just made sure that no OEM could bundle it with PCs, any that tried paid a high price. It was shut out. On the datacenter side however, Microsoft couldn’t force bundle Windows Server, customers put their own software on. For some strange reason, most large datacenters balk at paying $2000+ per two sockets for something that is vastly inferior to manage, slower, more resource hungry, and completely insecure versus the free alternative.

"Microsoft’s server market share went from 66%+ of sockets to less than 30% in five years, mostly due to datacenters and consolidation. Please don’t look for this to be reflected in the numbers from the big consulting houses, they are too afraid of revenue loss to count sockets. Instead they use the metrics that their customers want them to use, and only count sales of servers from certain vendors and sold OSes, a small fraction of the market. Microsoft didn’t just lose the server market, they were blown out of the water and have no way to recover. Other than internal services, Microsoft is just not relevant in the cloud. If you doubt this, go price a server instance from Rackspace, keep hardware constant and only vary the OS. Game over."

Demerjian is alluding right there at the start to Gartner and IDC, two firms that create an illusion that Microsoft is relevant on servers (in top Web servers Microsoft is at around 9% and in HPC Microsoft is hardly even at 1%).

Then come mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) which basically count as computers quite comparable to laptops. Demerjian writes: "That said most people didn’t grasp how badly Microsoft had fallen, they were totally irrelevant and had no more monopoly to leverage. This played out with the Windows 8 launch, Microsoft was desperately trying to stay relevant in mobile by forcing the entire computing ecosystem to adopt their new mobile OS. In theory this would lead to software being leveraged across platforms, and between Office and Exchange, they could force people to use Microsoft mobile products.

"A funny thing happened though, an entire generation of users didn’t want to give up their beloved iPhones or Android devices for an inferior, slower, more expensive, app-free Microsoft device. Microsoft repeated their threat loudly, “Use our mobile OS or you won’t get Office or Exchange on your phone!” To their abject horror the response was almost universally, “OK, bye”."

Microsoft is now attempting to fight Linux domination in mobile devices by taxing them. Mike Masnick becomes an accidental victim of spin and deception from Microsoft lobbyist Florian Müller, spreading another myth by naming only potential costs and making it look like patents add up to $120 on a phone. It's a shame that Masnick fell for it. Everyone knows that many phones cost far less than $120 and the nature of this warped analysis seeks to 'normalise' patent extortion against the likes of Android/Linux. There is agenda there. Hopefully Masnick will recognise this error because other than that he has done great work exposing Microsoft trolls like Intellectual Ventures that still do evil every month (usually via proxies). Masnick has also covered the sham of a 'reform' against patent trolls, which did not happen because trolls like Intellectual Ventures lobbied Congress for years and are still doing everything to keep this broken system of endless scope in place.

In order to artificially make Android more expensive Microsoft has been passing patents to patent trolls such as MOSAID. This is how Microsoft 'competes'. Microsoft wants taxes on phones to be seen as 'normal', or a status quo.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Staff Representatives Confront the President Who Says 'F--king' in Front of Female Workers Over Measurable Discrimination Against Female Colleagues
Central Staff Committee versus Lukashenko's sponsor
IBM Layoffs in 'RTO' Clothing Reported by Thomas Claburn
This "hey hi" (AI) nonsense is just a go-to excuse that IBM and GAFAM (and many others) use
Still Waiting for the EU to Abolish the Illegal and Unconstitutional Court Linked to EPO Corruption and Lobbyism by the Patent Litigation Industry
Sadly, all the blogs that used to talk about those issues have been infiltrated and then completely hijacked by the very perpetrators of the illegality
[Video] Richard Stallman Questions and Answers Session in Google's YouTube or Invidious
From last night
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles Published by Bots, Dominating Google News
So a lot of the Web is Microsoft chatbot-generated anti-Linux FUD
 
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: gwit and Restart
Links for the day
Links 13/02/2025: Algorithm Bots and 'Teleport' Breakthrough
Links for the day
Social Engineering of the Free Software Movement is a Corporate Takeover With Code of Conduct (CoC) to Drive Out or Expel Dissent
Richard Stallman (RMS) covered "cancel culture"
Links 13/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Google (Disguised as "Buyouts"), Telecoms Price Hikes as Collusion/Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: Broken Watches and Naming Types
Links for the day
Corrupt Bill Gates Worming His Way Into Richard Stallman Videos in Google's YouTube
Reputation laundering riding other people's names?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Links 12/02/2025: Crytek Layoffs, Security Holes, and Giving Ukraine to Russia
Links for the day
Relaying GAFAM Talking Points and Lies Using GAFAM LLMs, or Slop Pasted in by Brittany Day
linuxsecurity.com is relaying slop, i.e. misinformation
Photos From This Evening's Talk by Dr. Richard Stallman in Torino, Maybe a Video Soon
The talk that Dr. Richard Stallman gave today (a few hours ago) was recorded and streamed
IlSoftware.it Covers Richard Stallman's Visit to Give Talks in Italy
The publication is in Italian, the talk was in English
Macho Patent Office
At the EPO there's always room for women in top roles
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: "Bream Gives Me Hiccups", Making Chinese Tea, and More
Links for the day
This is Why Codeberg Issues an Apology Today
This response was clear and relatively swift
The Register Studies (to Affirm) Reports of IBM Layoffs "at the Finance and Operations business unit"
something about that specific unit
Links 12/02/2025: SSL FUD, DEI Phase-out, Felonies Committed by MElon (Data Breaches)
Links for the day
Italian Media Covers Richard Stallman's English Talk Ahead of Tonight's Public Appearance
article in La Stampa
Destruction and Distortion of Information, Including Facts About Linux (Bonus: This is Destroying the Planet)
All that LLMs have going for them is hype, and moreover media that intentionally misrepresents them and their supposed capabilities
Google Seems to Have Just Killed All Instances of Invidious
YouTube is rapidly becoming just "another Neflix"
Microsoft Skype in a Freefall: About 20% Decrease in Site Traffic in 3 Months (Amid Microsoft Phasing Out Credits)
Microsoft axing more services/features may mean that now they scrape the bottom of the barrel and Skype will simply die, discontinuing service (like ICQ) in a matter of years
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: Depression, Gabbro, WikiTok, and More
Links for the day
Links 12/02/2025: Health, Security, and Monopolies
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol is Increasingly Important to the Net
Gemini Protocol will turn 6 this summer
Former EPO Manager Warns That the Illegal 'Court' for "Unitary Patents" Enables “Law Shopping”
Daniel X. Thomas opposed the very existence of the UPC, which any honest person could recognise was both illegal and unconstitutional
Like GAFAM, the EPO is Passing the Financial Pains to Staff
the EPO is operating illegally at this point
Morale at Microsoft Ruined by the Company Labelling Thousands of Workers 'Low Performers', Sacking Them on the Spot and Denying Them Basic Benefits
people laid off as "low performers" go to social control media to bemoan the label
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 11, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Links 11/02/2025: Current state of the Internet and Smallnet Information Services (SIS)
Links for the day
Conservative Estimate: Over 10,000 IBM Workers to Be Laid Off in the Next Two Waves
The morale is low and layoffs are expected soon, with mass layoffs likely happening next month and then again later
Links 11/02/2025: Trade Wars and "Crisis for American Universities"
Links for the day
Parasitic LLM Slop Sites Destroy the Ability to Find "Linux" News in Google News
Remember that Google News laid off lots of its workers
Richard Stallman's English Talk in Italy Less Than 24 Hours Away (Torino) and Then Another Talk in Italy Scheduled (University of Bozen-Bolzano)
He's active and he travels a lot in spite of his medical condition
IBM Layoff Rumours, Large-Scale Implementations Weeks Ahead (in March 2025)
There are some people corroborating
Links 11/02/2025: Nutritional Poverty, Closure of USAID, More Fictional 'Valuations' Around Buzzwords
Links for the day
Perl Programming Leftovers
recently in perl.org
Microsoft in Africa: From 98% to Less Than 10% in Just 16 Years
Microsoft being on less than 1 in 10 Web-connected devices in Africa is a very big deal
Almost as If MElon Reads Techrights
The joke we started appears to be spreading
Microsoft Blasted for Adding Insult to Injury: Workers Laid Off Without Prior Notice, Without Severance Payment and Basic Coverage (Like Health), Then Stigmatised as Bad Performers So They Cannot Find a Job Elsewhere
Such stereotypes end entire careers
Gemini Links 11/02/2025: NeoVim and Deploying Other People's Code
Links for the day
BetaNews is Still Publishing LLM Slop/SPAM About "Linux"
Assuming it is indeed LLM slop, it seems clear BetaNews has no intention of improving or is simply unable/unwilling to improve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 10, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, February 10, 2025