MS anti-OSDL [Open Source Development Lab] PR, 2000: "Maureen O' Gara said
she was going to call them, so it looks better coming from her"
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft wanted to have its own spin for the press when this
| announcement happened, I gather, and it's certainly fascinating,
| like picking up a rock, to see how they do this kind of thing.
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070417181027290
Related:
Open source software still fighting FUD
,----[ Quote ]
| Other open source shortcomings are a lack of marketing muscle
| and the inherent tech-centric culture that dominates many open
| source projects.
|
| Without the marketing savvy to gloss over the warts of some open
| source solutions, the weaknesses in the software are fully
| exposed and derided by their better-funded commercial software
| competitors.
`----
http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=42953&cid=11
Too late to discredit open source, advocates say
,----[ Quote ]
| "It's too late," exclaimed Winston Damarillo, founder and
| chairman of software development firm Exist Global, in an
| interview with Computerworld Philippines. "Open source
| is all over the place."
|
| [...]
|
| Anson Uy, president of Touch Solutions (a Red Hat Linux company),
| earlier on broke the news to Computerworld Philippines about the
| alleged "funded missions" by some software firms to discredit open
| source, although he did not identify any company.
|
| Anson revealed among the top three actions against FOSS are being
| done through "sponsored studies, piracy of open source developers,
| and bold press releases."
`----
http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/030607-too-late-to-discredit-open.html?fsrc=rss-linux-news
http://tinyurl.com/2bj969
'Puppets' Emerge as Internet's Effective, and Deceptive, Salesmen
,----[ Quote ]
| Each is an example of "astroturfing," or the attempt to create the
| appearance of a grass-roots buzz for a product or service. "Trolls" are
| users who enter online discussion forums solely to bash users or products.
|
| When most people hear "sock puppet," they think "Lamb Chop," the stocking
| sidekick of the late ventriloquist Shari Lewis. For guerrilla Internet
| marketers, however, a sock puppet is a false online persona, a virtual sock
| meant to conceal one's identity. It usually takes the form of a second
| account set up by an existing user under another name.
`----
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/06/AR2006100601742.html?nav=rss_technology
A Wake-Up Call to Microsoft's PR Team
,----[ Quote ]
| In 1998, the Los Angeles Times reported that Microsoft, during its
| antitrust trials, hired PR companies to flood newspapers with fake
| letters of support, bearing ordinary individuals' names but actually
| written by Microsoft PR staff.
|
| Later, during the antitrust trials, Microsoft attempted to prove
| the inseparability of Windows and Internet Explorer by playing a
| video for the judge. But the government?s lawyer noticed that as
| the tape rolled on, the number of icons on the desktop kept
| changing. Microsoft had spliced together footage from different
| computers to make its point.
|
| Then in 2002, Microsoft's Web site featured a testimonial called
| "Confessions of a Mac to PC Convert," a first-person account by
| an attractive brunette "freelance writer" about how she had fallen
| in love with Windows XP.
|
| Unfortunately, a Slashdot member discovered that the identical
| photo was available for rent from the stock-photo libraries of
| GettyImages.com. Sure enough: Microsoft had hired a PR firm to
| write the testimonial. The "switcher" did not actually exist.
`----
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/a-wake-up-call-to-microsofts-pr-team/
,----[ Quote ]
| Long before it employed bloggers to do the job for it, Microsoft hired
| sympathetic members of the public to make its case in online forums,
| posing as disinterested citizens. Things got much more professional as
| the antitrust trial unfurled. After hiring DCI in the late 1990s,
| Microsoft created two new trade groups, the Association for Competitive
| Technology (ACT), and the Americans for Technology Leadership (ALT),
| and marshaled campaigns such as "Freedom to Innovate" - encouraging
| Windows users the chance to make spontaneous gestures of support for
| Chairman Bill.
|
| These weren't always too successful. A campaign in 2001 to petition 17
| state's Attorney Generals - who had pooled resources to bring their
| own antitrust action against Microsoft - resulted in supportive letters
| being written by dead people.
|
| And the astroturf taint continues today.
|
| Most recently, a spoof video portraying Al Gore as a Penguin was reported
| to have originated from a computer registered to the DCI Group, although
| the lobby group said it did not fund or approve the video.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/14/google_lobby/
,----[ Quote ]
| "Some years back, Microsoft practiced a lot of dirty tricks using
| online mavens to go into forums and create Web sites extolling the virtues
| of Windows over OS/2. They were dubbed the Microsoft Munchkins, and it
| was obvious who they were and what they were up to. But their numbers
| and energy (and they way they joined forces with nonaligned dummies who
| liked to pile on) proved too much for IBM marketers, and Windows won
| the operating-system war through fifth-column tactics"
`----
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/gizmos/2005/11/2_grassroots_an.html
Understanding Open Source technology
,----[ Quote ]
| "We have to outrun this phenomenon [Free software]" he [Ballmer] was quoted
| as saying, and " ...if we let up for a minute... then that other stuff will
| gain attraction."
`----
http://www.thetidenews.com/article.aspx?qrDate=01/31/2007&qrTitle=Understanding%20Open%20Source%20technology&qrColumn=ISSUES
|
|
