Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> One billion Windows users can be wrong
>
> ,----[ Quote
> | Misleading because Ballmer is talking about Windows as a whole,
> | everything out there including the die-hard Windows 95 users for
> | example. The prediction might be very different were he to concentrate
> | on the numbers of users likely to be running Vista within a year.
> `----
>
> http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry1563.html
>
>
> Related:
>
> How Microsoft Clubs to Search Gains
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | We checked with Hitwise, and they explained that June gains include
> | “searches automatically generated from a promotion on club.live.com,” up
> | to June 9, 2007. After that they stopped counting the data.
> `----
>
> http://gigaom.com/2007/07/27/how-microsoft-clubs-to-search-gains/
>
>
> Tracking Internet Use Remains Difficult
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | For example, this month Nielsen said search-engine queries for No.
> | 3-ranked Microsoft Corp. jumped about 80 percent in June, a curious
> | development for a search engine that had been continuously losing market
> | share.
> |
> | Microsoft said the gains were the result of a word game promotion, in
> | which players had to form words out of a jumble of letters. As part of
> | the game, Microsoft's search engine automatically hunted for Web pages
> | that contained the word being guessed at.
> |
> | The promotion raises the question of whether these clicks were the
> | result of using automated means, and therefore shouldn't be counted.
> |
> | Nielsen product manager Scott Ross said the company sees no need to
> | change the June search-engine rankings. Yet, he conceded that critics --
> | including Yahoo, operator of the world's second most popular search
> | engine -- may also have a point about Microsoft using questionable means
> | to spark the surge in popularity.
> `----
>
> http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070725/tracking_internet_usage.html?.v=1
>
>
> Microsoft’s Club Live fiasco
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | People were using the macro on more than 3 games at a time, on more than
> | 2 accounts at a time, why Microsoft didn’t pick up on the fact that in
> | the first few days some people had accumulated enough for 3 Zunes each
> | is beyond us. Some were lucky, others, not so much.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | So far no one has been banned from using their accounts, which they
> | needed to sign up, probably because they did not break any laws, or
> | probably because Microsoft didn’t want that hassle and liked their new
> | found traffic.
> `----
>
> http://www.blogthe.net/2007/07/16/microsofts-club-live-fiasco/
>
>
> Bots Helped To Boost Microsoft Live Search Gains
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | In a blog post, Compete analyst Steve Willis attributed Microsoft's
> | search gains to prizes awarded to users participating in Live Search
> | Club, which features games that post queries to Microsoft's search
> | engine.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | Microsoft is essentially being DDoSed by thousands of people hundreds
> | of times per minute, but they are mistaking this rise in traffic for
> | people actually using Live Search."
> `----
>
> http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201001092
>
>
> Is that 1 Million Zunes Shipped or Sold?
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis, says he
> | believes that Microsoft could have shipped 1 million Zunes. "They have
> | not sold 1 million players through nor do I believe they will by the end
> | of June," he said. "That number is likely to be around 750,000."
> |
> | Microsoft's modest sales goal--at least compared to more than 100
> | million iPods--may or may not be in sight, depending on whether
> | that number is shipped or sold.
> `----
>
>
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/games_consumer/is_that_1_million_shipped_or_sold.html?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535
>
>
> Rumor: Is Microsoft cheating their [Xbox 360] sales?
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | All in all, there are some sobering thoughts with very broad
> | implications for any company if that were true. That being said, would
> | you buy from Microsoft, or any other company for that matter, if they
> | were cheating their sales?
> `----
>
>
http://xbox360.qj.net/Rumor-Is-Microsoft-cheating-their-sales-/pg/49/aid/89595
>
>
> Uh-Oh, Vista! PC Sales Levels Are Normal
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | "Vista hasn't been a catalyst for PC sales," he said. "Looking at the
> | weekly data, there really isn't anything happening with sales that
> | has anything to do with Vista."
> `----
>
>
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/oh_oh_vista_pc_sales_levels_are_normal.html
>
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | "This is a relic of old-line consumer products companies like Philip
> | Morris, or fraudsters like Miniscribe who literally shipped bricks in
> | lieu of disk drives to hit sales targets.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | Channel stuffing is the business practice where a company or a sales
> | force within a company inflates its sales figures by forcing more
> | products through a distribution channel than the channel is capable
> | of selling to the world at large.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | We have a game we play around the office here with Microsoft press
> | releases. The game is, "Find the words that make the headline true."
> | It's not always easy.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | Sony, like Microsoft, announces units shipped, not actually sold.
> | This allows both companies to advertise sales numbers based on how
> | many units they can force retailers to accept, not on how many units
> | customers actually buy; both have considerable market power to push
> | excess unsold inventory into the channel."
> `----
>
> http://www.informationarbitrage.com/2007/04/microsoft_phili.html
>
>
> Open Source Fights Back
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | Question: The OpenSourceParking.com announcement cites a Netcraft
> | report, which found that GoDaddy.com's migration from Linux to Windows
> | caused Apache to lose server share. Was this event the sole impetus
> | for OpenSourceParking.com?
> |
> | Perens: Not the first. It's part of a continuing behavior pattern by
> | Microsoft that I think it's fair to call "dirty fighting." GoDaddy was
> | using Apache (I assume on Linux) because it was a great technical
> | solution. They didn't switch to IIS on Windows Server 2003 for any
> | technical reason. The switch was accompanied by a press release by
> | GoDaddy, containing Microsoft promotional language. Now, I've changed
> | many servers from one thing to another, but I've never made a press
> | release about it. GoDaddy wouldn't be doing that unless Microsoft had
> | offered them something valuable in return. There has been talk in the
> | domain business that Microsoft has been offering the large domain
> | registries a wad of cash to switch their parked sites. There is no
> | other reason to do this than to influence the Netcraft figures.
> `----
>
> http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=15108
Nice way to give yourself hits. I wonder if googles hits include the number
of times agoogle web site apears in your lists, or do they actually wait
until you click on one of them to count it.
It's like my own personal web site I suppose, I get chuffed at the number of
hits, until I use webanalyzer and realise that most of the hits were myself
updating the site.
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