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How do they sleep at night?

Microsoft´s fear now has a price !

Oct 21, 08 - 12:09 pm Comment from: Wandering joe

Sounds like someone or something is desperate.

I bet Dvorak snaps that $15k up quick. That'll keep him in outmoded Hawaiian shirts for years to come.

In Related News

Microsoft subsidary MicroChair announced 4th quarter earnings increases of 27% with a major percentage of the increase due to sales to the parent company who accounted for the marked increase in purchases due to "breakage"

Some interesting posts over at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=2415 concerning this story.

I know that the talking heads are clueless idiots. Are they now going to be openly on the take too!

If you can manipulate Congress and the Senate with a little cash and perks for their family members. It would not take much to manipulate the idiots.

Microsoft, try hiring some NEW programers with that cash and start from scratch.

I suppose that $15,000 will come out of Vista's 'advertising' budget...

hahaha

Oct 21, 08 - 12:40 pm Comment from: Mr. Peabody

Again I ask, why doesn't MS just make products that people want to buy rather than wasting time trying to trap and hold it's customers?

This would be funny if it were new or if it didn't parallel typical unethical practices in the media. It's been standard practice for a while. As a Microsoft leaked document on evangelism stated long ago, analysts are whores - that's their business model. So I guess that makes Microsoft a big phucker who can't get laid without shelling out $15K!

Oct 21, 08 - 12:51 pm Comment from: Demon

Well this is not first report of this type of email nor will it be the last. Microsoft is seeing their Monopoly share shrinking and MS entire leverage thinking is without 95%+ of the market we can't control it. Their fear is Apple will make it's way into the enterprise is a big way. And Enterprise customers will start to see big cost savings. This will in turn spark more Macs and more Enterprises to switch.
The switch to Mac will erode Exchange Server sales and will have a direct and overnight impact on .NET and ActiveX which can easily be replaced with Java Based systems which will be needed to support Mac Clients. Reduced demand for Windows Only Enterprise Applications is already occurring and large content management application companies are already shifting back away from Windows only solutions. The difference is this time they are dragging and pushing their partners to make their add-in offerings cross platform and in some case they're ending long time partnerships when partners refuse to go cross platform.
The writing is on the wall for the enterprises and it reads cross platform or IT Heads will roll from the top down.

Something is rotten in the State of Washington...

Oct 21, 08 - 12:56 pm Comment from: Cubert

Ummmm......lawyer types in the audience - isn't this illegal, somehow, in some way?

Ballmer: OK guys, how is Seven coming along?

Team: Um.. Errr.. Well... Aahh... It's sort of OK, but a bit more...

B: More what?

T: More, err... slow.

B: SLOWWWWW?!? It's SLOWER than Vi...Windows 6???

T: Sorry boss. It's bigger and does more but with this architecture there's a price to pay..and that's speed.

B: Right then. Marketing. Boost the blogger slush fund. Throw another 200 mill at it. Right now. Bloggers, journalists whoever. Pay them all..

Oct 21, 08 - 01:03 pm Comment from: Logan

And how much are you getting paid MDN, for your fanatical support of Apple? Huh?


Oh, right. Nothing. We love Apple because it's a great company (usually), that gives us great products (most of the time), and fights the status quo (almost always).

True loyalty can't be bought. It's earned.

Wow Microsoft, just wow!

You can't pay for advertising like this.

If this sort of thing isn't illegal, it should be. At the very least, it is unethical, no matter how many billions of Gates' stolen money he gives away.

MW=bad!!! Good one.

Oct 21, 08 - 01:16 pm Comment from: G4Dualie

With the kind of cache Zune Tang possesses, he could command at least fifty bucks.

Oct 21, 08 - 01:28 pm Comment from: Grifterus

Where is Zune Tang?

Haven't heard from Zune Tang for a while!

Hey, it's a tried and true Republican strategy. Why is anyone surprised that Microsoft would use it?

"Again I ask, why doesn't MS just make products that people want to buy rather than wasting time trying to trap and hold it's customers?"

Because, Mr. Peabody, they can't. Not to say Microsoft doesn't have good products. Whether or not they have good products is irrelevant as the problem is Microsoft is a dysfunctional organization. They get in their own way more often than not. The story of how long it took to program the new start button in Vista is certain to become a classic negative example in business courses.

The core strategy of Windows is 'lock-in'. Microsoft's growth was driven by bully-boy tactics. The company went straight from a garage start-up to a legal and marketing driven entity. At no point was Microsoft organized as an engineering group devoted to producing product. Faced with a challenge, their first corporate instinct is not to make a better widget, but to hobble the competition. Once Microsoft was in a dominant position, they could defend their market share with these tactics as long as the products they offered we 'good enough'.

Vista broke the chain of 'good enough'. It's not that Vista is inferior to Mac OS X or any of the Linux flavours. It's that Vista is inferior to its predecessor, XP. Microsoft found itself in competition with itself. True to form its first instinct was to hobble the competition. XP was discontinued, was no longer for sale, and would soon be unsupported. When this threatened a mass exodus from Microsoft OSes in general, Microsoft climbed down and engaged in a little slight of hand. Windows XP was most definitely a discontinued product, and not available for sale, but you could install XP under a Vista license.

It is often remarked that to make Windows a modern, high performance OS requires a complete code rewrite from scratch. Similarly, to make Microsoft a product focussed company that responds to the market and can compete on quality and innovation would require a compete reorganization from scratch. Microsoft has some very high quality people, who must be as frustrated as hell.

As a side note, when Microsoft was flying high, leaping from success to success, much attention was given to the famous Microsoft application exam with its quirky questions. What most commentators missed, and what i suspect is now biting Microsoft in the butt, is that, quirky as those questions were, there was a marking guide that gave a correct answer, the Microsoft answer, for each question. Microsoft very carefully sifted through the mountains of applicants they received to select a team of brilliant, creative people who all thought the same way when presented with a challenge.

Oops.

Oct 21, 08 - 01:48 pm Comment from: 84 Mac Guy

Now I understand how MS is going to spend its $300M advertising budget for Vista. Since MS can't do a decent TV or print ad, they will instead spend the money on bribes and payoffs.

2008 is the year that journalism has died.

If all it takes is money to get a "journalist" to tell your story, true or false, slanted or straight, then who can you believe or trust anymore.

It's truly a sad era that we live in.

So I guess we can all believe whatever we want to believe and the only truth is what you think is truth.

It's not illegal. All companies hire people to write positive copy for their products. These can be in-house employees or outside marketing firms. When it is seen as unethical is when the copy writer is not identified as a direct or indirect employee of the firm benefiting from the copy or when the copy writer is explicitly or implicitly identified as impartial. When concealed ties are brought to light after the fact, things generally go badly for the company and the copy writer. Especially for the copy writer. Once your identity as a hired gun has been made public, your market value drops precipitously.

Bizarrely, some writers, like Thurott, are blatant about their mercenary status, even publishing price lists for puff or hit pieces, and still manage to make a good living and be quoted widely. The only time such activities are illegal is when the facts are not just spun but fabricated.

Oct 21, 08 - 01:54 pm Comment from: ken1w

I can see another GET A MAC ad coming ("bean counter II"). I can just see it now...

Hello, I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC. And I'm an "Enterprise Blogger."

PC "discretely" hands a wad of bills to the fat blogger in a tacky Hawaiian T-shirt.

Mac asks, "What's going on PC?"

You can imagine the rest...

Oct 21, 08 - 02:06 pm Comment from: Macromancer

Gotta love Microsoft getting outed on another fake "grassroots" campaign.

Fake letter writers to encourage the DOJ to drop the anti-trust lawsuit against them

Fake art director testimonials (stock photo of an 'art director') to get people to switch to PC's.

Now this blogging bounty.

This company is running on inertia alone.

Now you know why there is so many stupid unfounded reviews of apple products. I told you, those 300 millions didn't end in 4 microsoft ads...

"Some interesting posts over at http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=2415 concerning this story."

I'm waiting to see the following on the 'net.

<b>MICROSOFT CEO CAUSES FATAL ROAD CRASH (*)<b>
38 elementary students were killed when their bus crashed in the X River after being driven off the road by a Hummer H2 driven by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. State Patrolmen said Mr. Ballmer tested over the legal limit at a roadside sobriety test. …

Comments:
Must be a slow news day. Nothing better to do than beat up on Microsoft?

(*) This headline and article are pure fiction written to support the rather lame joke that follows about the commentator. While i think Ballmer is an incompetent CEO, i have no reason to believe he is a bad person or that he would ever drive drunk. He could be a teetotaller for all i know.

Damn. Sorry about the broken tag.

Welcome to PR wars. Behind the headlines, this is the type of stuff that goes on. PR and marketing teams are enlisted to sow FUD, launch rumors and whisper campaigns, pay off bloggers and journalists to plant stories based on corporate talking points, and often, file stories under their byline that the journalist or blogger never wrote.

If you don't think this sort of thing happens, guess again. Much of what you see as business news on TV new is not generated by the network, but instead "reports" are often video press releases developed, produced and paid for by a corporate client of a PR firm. The PR firm then packages and pitches the news release, video news release, article or interview access with a major corporate executive (aided and abetted by the fact that the corporation might be a major advertiser) to get a favorable story planted, or to get their talking points into play.

When you are talking about Microsoft, it's played on a whole new level. Within Microsoft's PR department are over 500 full-time employees whose task is to track everything written and said in the media about the company; produce and pitch news releases, articles, briefs, backgrounders and talking points. In addition, the corporate PR team also pitches speaking engagements by Microsoft corporate executives at trade shows and other events, and pitches appearances and interviews with their executives in print, in radio, in podcasts and on television.

In addition, Microsoft also employs 500-1,000 outside PR and marketing professionals with companies like Waggoner-Edstrom Public Relations and other firms. Their job is similar and even more broad in scope. As a third party, these companies are an arm's length from Microsoft, but act as the company's PR operatives. They have divisions that focus on pushing the talking points and PR agenda of Microsoft corporate and its various divisions: consumer (games, devices, Windows, Applications and online services), Enterprise and Corporate.

This combined army has cultivated deep relationships with the computer trade media, bloggers, business press (Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, etc.), newspapers, wire services and other news organizations around the world.

The bottom line: when you start seeing a similar pattern of talking points emerge in various news media about Microsoft, or conversely, anti-Apple (Vista good, Apple bad), know that this isn't an accident.

In recent months, as Apple has continued to win favorable views from the media, from corporate executives, from an entire generation of consumers, and continued to gain market share, this has caused alarms to go off in Redmond. The company has made it clear that it is committing millions of dollars to marketing and advertising. But it's not just the lame Microsoft "I'm a PC" ad campaign we're talking about. Instead, Microsoft is no doubt spending millions more on PR and whisper marketing to sow FUD (a classic Microsoft tactic) and to position Microsoft favorably at the cost of its competitors (in this case, Apple).

Examples of this in recent years include:

1. 1990s: Apple is beleagured, Apple is doomed.
2. 2002 - 2006: Security through obscurity.
3. 2008: Apple Tax.
What is fascinating is that Microsoft's latest ploy has been outed by David Morgenstern. There's an old adage in PR that you never want to BE the news, but you should only make it. In this case, Microsoft has made itself the news. Bad.

In a latter episode of the Raiders of the Lost Ark series, Indiana Jones, when confronted by an Arab assailant wielding a flourish of swords, reaches for his gun, as he did in the original movie. But this time, instead of simply shooting his assailant, he discovers his gun isn't there. I think there's a metaphorical similarity here.

Memo to Steve Baller: your old tricks don't work any more. But that won't stop Microsoft from resorting to evil and dubious tactics.

And that, dear friends, is our lesson today in Public Relations. Have a nice day.

P.S. Strap in to your seats and get ready for the FUD attacks in response to Apple's earnings statements. Microsoft, short sellers, hedge funds and others are already gearing up to use the media and to whisper to Wall Street analysts negative words to push their positions. Don't say you weren't warned.

@Viktor,

Sorry. I'm afraid there are so many stupid, unfounded reviews of Apple products (or Microsoft or anyone's products) because there are so many reviewers who are not knowledgeable about the basics of their self proclaimed fields of expertise.

Do not assume conspiracy where incompetence is a sufficient explanation. I'm sure someone famous said that, or at least someone said it famously.

Oct 21, 08 - 02:35 pm Comment from: HolyMackerel

Now that OpenOffice is a viable alternative to MS Office, and there are many viable browsers to IE, and many viable media players and many viable gaming platforms and many viable mail/calendar solutions and many viable databases and the Cloud is becoming viable for enterprise-type services and Linux is a more viable web server solution and there are more viable virtualisation solutions, etc, etc.

In what area is MS still the most viable solution? Maybe Exchange with its user-lockin. Maybe Visual Studio with its developer-lockin? But even these are starting to look Windows-limited.

The recession (or fear of a recession) will push Open Source software to the foreground whatever the OS, but its open nature means that the MacOS is no longer locked out and the best solution can rise to the top each time.

Grifterus wrote: "Where is Zune Tang? Haven't heard from Zune Tang for a while!"

Well, the original, Microsoft marketing campaign he and other lemmings were getting paid to post under has now expired. Since the first one (with Zune Tang and others) failed so miserably, we now have to endure the launch of a brand new campaign to take it's place, which also won't gain any traction.

Microsoft is so very bad at PR and marketing. It's pathetic. Hey Ballmer. Why don't you try harder to improve your products instead of merely copying Apple?

Oct 21, 08 - 02:40 pm Comment from: iWill

Report:
Microsoft willing to pay Mac enterprise bloggers to sell out Apple

A text-book example of astroturfing.

Oct 21, 08 - 03:38 pm Comment from: NCIceman

That is just sad.

Hey MS, why don't you try competing by making quality products rather than this unethical tripe....

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha!

Really... that was pretty much my immediate response when I read this.

Oct 21, 08 - 06:50 pm Comment from: onionhead

Gimme my $15k and I'll write whatever you want MS!

Oct 21, 08 - 09:30 pm Comment from: MacSheikh

@ Mike

"How do they sleep at night?"

They don't. They sleep in the day and "work" at night.

Oct 21, 08 - 11:06 pm Comment from: HeartMan

Balmer is going to run Microsoft right into the ground.

OooH! Did PC allready sell so many cackes? lol

Maybe i'll ask M$ for some monney to put a vista add on my website... I would just need some $ to buy a new Mac Pro next spring!

Oct 22, 08 - 11:33 am Comment from: ElderNorm

WOW, At least now we can see where that $ 300,000,000 is going.

Cause we know, its not going towards the cost of advertisments.

LOL , Just WOW, LOL.

Just a thought,
en