Spin Cycles... MS losing hearts and minds

Today, I'm mirroring a comment by MS-MVP Bradley.

She makes a great point about spin cycles....

"There are times like today I get tired of the spin cycle. Today I saw a Linux white paper that compares the TCO prices of Linux to Windows and in their comparison chart calls ISA 2004 a "web server" and includes it in the pricing comparisons. Uh, nice guys, but ISA 2004 is a firewall and doesn't compare at all to an Apache/Jboss server. Apache/Jboss normally goes 'behind' a firewall, which is what ISA Server 2004 Enterprise is. Then on the SBS Faq site , today I noticed it said this in their faq about what's in SBS 2003 R2:

"SBS 2003 R2 will only include one Windows Server 2003 R2 component and that component is Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2. "

Microsoft, come on, give me a break. I get Windows Sharepoint Services Service Pack 2 on Microsoft Update for heavens sake. When I can get it on a Sp1 box, and already have it there, call me wacko, but I don't consider that it's something special that's included from the Windows Server 2003 R2 parts. Furthermore on this Windows 2003 R2 comparison page, it says that Windows 2003 sp1 gets it too. You know why Linux is going to win the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of businesses? Because we, John Q. Public are losing trust in you. Truly, we are. You are slowing eroding the trust. And quite frankly stuff like this plays right into that.

Want to have proof that the paranoia isn't just relegated to the Tinfoil folks? This very statement was on a listserve the other day in regards to trusting Microsoft Defender Beta 2....

"If we relegate watching and protecting for malware, trojans, adware, spyware and the like to Microsoft, who will be watching them?"

Last summer I was in Chicago for Tech conference and the gentlemen giving the keynote (admittedly using a Mac to give his presentations) said that Microsoft was on the real verge of losing trust by it's customers.

Am I the only one that is getting tired of the spin that I see going on? I mean there are marketing books on 'how to tell a story'. Why can't facts sell? Why don't companies see that facts can be just as powerful as fluff?

Microsoft Lashes Out at European Regulators

Oh yeah, MS looks REAL mature doing this...

NY-TIMES TODAY Feb. 15 — In a stinging rebuke to the European Commission, Microsoft insisted Wednesday that it had complied with the commission's antitrust requirements and sharply criticized the way the regulator had conducted its compliance review.

Microsoft, facing possible fines of 2 million euros a day, submitted a 75-page response to the commission, Europe's top antitrust authority, just hours before a midnight deadline. The company said it had met the requirements of the commission's antitrust ruling of March 2004, and accused the commission of obfuscation.

"The commission repeatedly refused to clearly define its requirements and concerns, despite repeated requests and accommodations by Microsoft," the company said in a statement Wednesday.

"The company's response documents numerous ways in which the commission had ignored key information and denied Microsoft due process in defending itself," the company added.

In the ruling two years ago, the commission branded Microsoft a monopoly abuser, ordered it to change its business practices in Europe and fined it 497 million euros for using the ubiquity of Windows to extend its dominance to other sectors of the software market, like server systems.

The commission said in a statement Wednesday that it would consider Microsoft's response carefully. (AFTER ALL... YOU MUST REMEMBER -->) "It is the commission that decides if Microsoft is in compliance with the ruling, not Microsoft," said Jonathan Todd, the commission's spokesman on competition matters.

On Dec. 22, the commission said Microsoft had not yet complied with its ruling. The agency said that "Microsoft had not yet provided complete and accurate specifications of the interoperability information which it is obliged to disclose."

Microsoft, however, said it had filed the technical documents to the commission by the Dec. 15 deadline. Those documents answered the remaining questions the commission had on the company's compliance, Microsoft said.

The commission, however, said it received nothing from Microsoft until after its public statement on the company. "This documentation was actually supplied on Dec. 26," the commission said.

Microsoft insists it has complied with the 2004 ruling, which among other things ordered the company to reveal technical details about the Windows operating system that would allow rival server software programs to work as well with Windows as Microsoft's own server software does.

"Microsoft has complied fully with the technical documentation requirements," the company said Wednesday.

An independent monitor approved by Microsoft who oversees the company's compliance with the ruling found, however, that the documents provided by Microsoft last fall did not meet the commission's requirements.

The monitor, Neil Barrett, a computer science professor at Cranfield University in England, told the commission last fall that he could not use Microsoft's instructions to make rival server software comparable to Microsoft's.

On Wednesday, Microsoft also complained that the commission failed to inform it of shortfalls in its response in time.

"The commission waited many months before informing Microsoft that it believed changes were necessary to the technical documents, and then gave Microsoft only a few weeks to make extensive revisions," the company said in its filing to the commission.

Microsoft has requested an oral hearing with antitrust officials and rivals in the software industry. The hearing will probably be held some time in the next two to three weeks, the commission said.

After the hearing, the commission will consult with national antitrust regulators from the 25 member states of the European Union. At that point, if it still believes Microsoft has not complied with the 2004 ruling, it will issue another ruling against the company, fining it 2 million euros a day retroactively to Dec. 15, the date Microsoft was supposed to have submitted all the necessary information.

Windows -- Hairball?

Todd Bishop in the Seattle P-I knows how to ask the right questions. In his Microsoft Blog this week, Todd mentions running into Scott McNealy....

Notes from this week's RSA security conference in San Jose, Calif.:

Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy was hanging out in front of the stage before his keynote address here Tuesday, and I was able to speak with him briefly. I posed a couple serious questions and then took the opportunity to ask him whether he still considers Windows a "hairball," as he once famously said. He just raised his eyebrows. "You tell me," he said.