LinuxPlanet: Lou’s Views: Playing Hardball with Microsoft

“There’s been no lack of outrage in the Linux and open source
arenas lately over Microsoft’s actions, particularly some of Ji m
Allchin’s recent statements regarding the “threat” of open source
or GPL’d software or whatever it was he was really talking about.
Every time I see the Linux and open/free source supporters getting
all huffed up about this incident or Microsoft’s ongoing FUD war
against Linux, I have to laugh. Not because it’s just so much
silliness from Microsoft (which it is), but because it doesn’t even
scratch the surface of what they’re capable of and routinely do.
Microsoft is not only far better at this game than you imagine,
they’re far better at it than you can imagine.”

“…Want specifics? How about this: A couple of weeks ago I
received an unsolicited magazine in the mail, a copy of something
called eDirections: Enterprise Solutions for the Digital Age. I had
never heard of the magazine, but it was very obviously a big-budget
operation–it was printed on high-quality glossy paper with
excellent use of photography and typography. I noticed that several
of the article blurbs on the cover mentioned Microsoft products,
but there wasn’t a hint of a “should you be using Linux”-style
article, which seemed odd, given what a pressing question this is
today for this publication’s intended audience. Flipping through
the magazine I noticed that three of the six feature articles had
author bios at the end indicating that the author’s name was really
a pseudonym. I can tell you without hesitation that this is very
weird; a technical writer has nothing to sell but his or her
reputation, so we aggressively collect resume bullets and use them
whenever and wherever possible. And that means that anonymous
writing is a waste of time, not to mention being very
suspicious…”

Complete
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