Reasons to Avoid Microsoft

Show All

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt

Warning: Missing argument 6 for item(), called in /var/www/lugod/microsoft/index.php on line 637 and defined in /var/www/lugod/microsoft/includes.php on line 38

• High-profile anti-Unix site runs Unix (CNet, 2002.Apr.01)
  A Web site sponsored by Microsoft [...] dubbed 'We have the way out,' runs on Web servers powered by FreeBSD, an open-source version of Unix, along with the Unix-based Web server Apache, according to Netcraft, which tracks Web site information. Both pieces of software compete with Microsoft's Windows operating system. ... Representatives at Unisys and Microsoft weren't immediately available for comment.
  

• Deciphering the open-source war (C|Net, 2002.Mar.08)
  Mundie uses a textbook tactic of manipulation: start with some reasonable talk, and lead the audience to an unreasonable conclusion. ... To follow Mundie's conclusion ... you'd have to believe that the money people save by using [Linux] just disappears. But this is not to say that the main benefit of Linux and other GPL software is lower-cost. Control is the main benefit--cost is secondary. Control means being able to get a different service provider if you don't like the service you're getting on your software [...] not having to convince the software's producer that your needs fit in their marketing plan ... If open source was economically unviable, development would have ceased long before there was $1.9 billion worth of it. [Mundie said] '... there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative.' [well, duh!]
  

• No more excuses: It's time to stop using Microsoft products (Newsforge, 2002.Mar.04)
  Microsoft management is now threatening to stop shipping Windows completely if the next federal court decision goes against them. ... A company that makes this kind of threat in response to requests that it follow the basic rules of free enterprise and competitive capitalism -- not to mention follow U.S. law -- ticks me off. If I owned a business that was dependent on Microsoft products, I would be looking very hard for an alternative. The idea that a single company, in a fit of petulance, could stop distributing needed updates and bugfixes to software on which I depended to earn a living would strike fear into my heart. I would, as a simple act of prudence, make sure Microsoft products were not instrumental to the operation of my company. Indeed, a public company that fails to implement alternatives to Microsoft software in light of Microsoft's latest behavior, and later suffers business interruptions or losses as a result of Microsoft's childish reactions to judicial orders, could easily get sued by its shareholders.
  

• Removing IE would kill Win2k, WinXP, MS, says Redmond (The Register, 2002.Mar.04)
  Both Windows XP and Windows 2000 will be rendered inoperable, and Microsoft will be unable to develop future new operating systems, if it is forced to separate IE from the operating system, according to court filings the company made on Friday. ... [An] mail from Bill Gates from February 1997 [said] it would be important to leverage the OS to make people use IE instead of Navigator, and there was much else that suggested bolting the two together was a predatory decision, rather than a technical one.
  

• MS promotes Linux from threat to 'the' threat - Memo (The Register, 2001.Nov.12)
  'You should be smothering your accounts from every angle, and if you see Linux and/or IBM in there with it, then get all over it. Don't lose a single win to Linux.'
  

• Thank you, Microsoft, but no thanks! (NewsForge, 2001.Nov.9)
  Bill Gates recently claimed that Microsoft was responsible for the success of open source. ... [There] is one smidgen of truth in this; yes, Mr. Gates, recently you have helped open source succeed -- in much the same way Osama bin Laden has helped beef up airport security lately. Microsoft's monopolistic, price-gouging, bullying behavior is making open source more attractive every day.
  

• How Microsoft invented open source, by Billg (The Register, 2001.Nov.9)
  The open source movement wouldn't exist without Microsoft, Bill Gates told his company's shareholder meeting earlier this week. [Gates claimed] credit for building the environment in which open source could thrive... Historians will note that this is absolutely not what Microsoft [did].
  

• Microsoft attempts to allay security fears (CNet, 2001.Oct.03)
  On Tuesday, Microsoft contacted about 1,000 of its largest customers to outline its program, called the Strategic Technology Protection Program, and address their concerns about recent worm attacks... Analysts warn that the damage to the credibility of some Microsoft products may be hard to repair and may cast a shadow over the company's impending move into Web services, with its .Net and .Net My Services initiatives.
  

• HailStorm promise and threat remain distant (C|Net, 2001.Aug.30)
  Despite being among the top five executives at Microsoft ... [even he] is unclear on HailStorm's business model and its revenue-generating potential. ... Critics say Microsoft is falling back on a familiar strategy--spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (or FUD)--to convince customers to wait for its products rather than buy from the competition.
  

• Microsoft lobbying campaign backfires; even dead people write in support of firm (Seattle Times, 2001.Aug.23)
  [Reprint of following]
  

• Lobbyists Tied to Microsoft Wrote Citizens' Letters (LA Times, 2001.Aug.23)
  Letters purportedly written by at least two dead people landed on the desk of [the Utah Attorney General] ... imploring him to go easy on Microsoft Corp. for its conduct as a monopoly. The pleas ... are part of a carefully orchestrated nationwide campaign to create the impression of a surging grass-roots movement. ... The campaign ... goes to great lengths so that the letters appear to be spontaneous expressions from ordinary citizens. ... 'This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries.'
  

• Gates wades into open-source debate (CNet, 2001.Jun.19)
  'Microsoft's shared-source (program) has many of the same issues, and they're often worse' because the person must make sure none of the Microsoft ideas creeps into other software, [Larry Augustin] said. 'A person who's seen shared source is probably very contaminated and is going to have a hard time working on other projects.'
  

• Open Source Is Bad (Slashdot.org, 2001.May.02)
  In a speech defending Microsoft's business model ... [Microsoft argues] that the company already follows the best attributes of the open-source model by sharing the original programmer's instructions, or source code, more widely than is generally realized.
  

• XBox Screenshot Flim-Flammery? (Slashdot.org, 2001.Mar.18)
  Apparently a game character was pasted on the scene background and a stock Photoshop lens flare was added. ... The screenshots on the XBox site have been updated, but gamers seem to have long, intense, pixel-specific memories.
  

• Sort through FUD on Microsoft product activation (TechRepublic, 2001.Mar.08)
  IT professionals are among the best informed and most sophisticated of all Microsoft's customers. So it's especially disturbing to see what a terrible job the company has done in explaining how this new policy will affect its customers-at home and in corporations.
  

• Software giant looks to bury test results... (InfoWorld.com, 2001.Mar.05)
  Microsoft recently threw around its weight-- and its fat wallet-- to squash an independent testing lab from publishing benchmark results that the lab ran for InfoWorld's sister publication NetworkWorld. The test demonstrated that SQL Server 7 runs nearly twice as fast on Windows NT 4.0 than it does on Windows 2000.
  

• Microsoft Executive Says Linux Threatens Innovation (C|Net Investor, 2001.Feb.14)
  ...freely distributed software code such as rival Linux could stifle innovation and that legislators need to understand the threat.
  

Hosting provided by:
Sunset Systems
Sunset Systems offers preconfigured Linux systems, remote system administration and custom software development.

LUGOD: Linux Users' Group of Davis
PO Box 2082, Davis, CA 95617
Contact Us

LUGOD is a 501(c)7 non-profit organization
based in Davis, California
and serving the Sacramento area.
"Linux" is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.