Jim Fawcette (my old boss and the guy who is very responsible for me being here today) recently posted something I just ran across (I don’t read his feeds cause they are partial text). Anyway, he was trying to make a point that Microsoft is practicing great PR (in an evil way). Pretty usual “the PR committee is using bloggers” kind of stuff until he got to this paragraph:
“A great example of astroturfing is an internal blog by a paid PR person that ostensibly criticizes Microsoft. The business press has lapped this up. I’m not criticising either Microsoft or the blog. It’s brillant! But let’s not pretend it is something it is not. This isn’t open criticism; it’s a distraction, like what magicians do to keep your eye off the real trick, or a pressure release value on a steam cooker.
“The paid, semi-critical blog distracts people from forming a nexus around an external blog, or from reading real, insightful, internal criticism of Microsoft, such as mini-Microsoft or Joel Splosky (with his great piece on How Microsoft Lost the API Wars). Check them out if you want criticism with more bite than gums.”
Now this sounds a lot like he’s talking about me. Oh, great, I alone am saving the world from harsh Microsoft criticism! Ouch!
But, let’s look at Jim’s claim a little deeper.
First, I was blogging before Mini (Joel, though, has been blogging longer than me) and I was hired before he started, or before Joel posted his famous API War piece. I was also one of the first bloggers to link to either of those. And, my employee goals state nothing about trying to keep people from paying attention to negative PR about Microsoft. Which, might explain why I’m not in the PR department.
Speaking of which, yesterday was my fifth “blogging birthday.” I started blogging December 15, 2000.
By the way, according to Bloglines, Joel Spolsky’s API War blog has 695 links. Now, quick, find a post of mine that has that many links. Even my most linked to post, my Corporate Weblogger Manifesto, has only been linked to 280 times. So, if I were supposed to keep people from reading Joel’s post, I have failed, and failed miserably.
It gets worse (or better, depending on how you’re following this).
When I visited Microsoft Ireland a couple of weeks ago and got a tour with my camcorder, every employee there said they read Mini. Most of the .NET user group members there said they read Mini. He’s been in Business Week (on the cover even!) And his posts get many times more comments than mine do. So, on the face of it, Jim Fawcette’s claims just don’t hold up to scrutiny.
So, if it’s Microsoft’s goal to keep you from reading those who disagree with Microsoft in some way, I’m failing miserably.
But, that’s not my goal. Thankfully. My goal is to listen to them, have a conversation with them, and see where we can improve.
Here’s some other posts asking Microsoft to improve.
Ed Bott is asking for Microsoft to open up its Office 12 NDAs. I’ll talk to the team about that. I think NDAs are often too restrictive and are ultimately counterproductive.
Kim Greenlee wants Microsoft to explain more clearly what the differences are between all the MSDN Subscriptions and the Visual Studio 2005 Team Editions are.
James Governor is worrying about what Microsoft will do with DRM in the future. Don’t worry, James, I’d quit if Microsoft ever put a kill code that it could call in your software like that.
Vinit Carpenter wrote a review of domains.live.com but wants us to remove the restrictions with the usage of Outlook.
Anyone else have anything that they want Microsoft to improve?
Scobleizer 
Yeah! Stop the insanity with people complaining about the price of Microsoft tools for startups!
Microsoft–you have GREAT programs for startups (like Empower). Tell people about them! Dispel the myth that it’s expensive to start a company developing on your platform (see my blog for details).
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>>I just ran across (I don’t read his feeds cause they are partial text).
Excuse me? Your feed’s are not full text either. How do you get off with this comment.
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Yeah! Stop the insanity with people complaining about the price of Microsoft tools for startups!
Microsoft–you have GREAT programs for startups (like Empower). Tell people about them! Dispel the myth that it’s expensive to start a company developing on your platform (see my blog for details).
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>>I just ran across (I don’t read his feeds cause they are partial text).
Excuse me? Your feed’s are not full text either. How do you get off with this comment.
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I’m one of those who strongly dislikes the new MSDN/VS2005 dichotomy. It’s much like the problem I have with the Vista SKUs: MS decided to figure out what the usage roles were for the programs and came up with various editions to handle it, but the editions fork such that it discourages certain cross-discipline usage patterns. Only satisfactory way around it: buy the super-duper edition of MSDN so you can get exactly what you want, which seems like overkill, especially since the SKUs are so numerous; if you are going to put out 8 different SKUs for a product, just offer it ala carte so you don’t leave out the 9th person.
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I’m one of those who strongly dislikes the new MSDN/VS2005 dichotomy. It’s much like the problem I have with the Vista SKUs: MS decided to figure out what the usage roles were for the programs and came up with various editions to handle it, but the editions fork such that it discourages certain cross-discipline usage patterns. Only satisfactory way around it: buy the super-duper edition of MSDN so you can get exactly what you want, which seems like overkill, especially since the SKUs are so numerous; if you are going to put out 8 different SKUs for a product, just offer it ala carte so you don’t leave out the 9th person.
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Yeah – the crappy web browser you forced on all the windows users.
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Yeah – the crappy web browser you forced on all the windows users.
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I think the quoted criticism is valid and I don’t see anything about it that has to do with who started blogging first. In fact, you make his point by, once again, changing the subject. Whether you do this intentionally (evil) or not (dumb) really doesn’t matter a whole lot.
The net results is still that it serves Microsoft’s marketing purpose, which as usual completely overrides technical considerations and serves as another example of the company treating it’s users as slaves.
(I can’t resist)
I was recently asked if I’d like to take on a stealth marketing job for a small company and I said flat-out “no”. I think so much marketing today is unethical, and that is particularly so when it masquerades as something else (“free” seminars on various topics being my other “favorite” abuse of customers time and goodwill).
I think eventually the consumer will adjust to this, and to a large extent already has, becoming more cynical today than ever. Next time you ask yourself (or us) why is our (Microsoft’s) credibility still so bad even though we have done so much to clean up our act? Look back at this post.
Actions speak louder than words. Particularly these days. There is a point beyond which the assumption becomes: Everything from these people is a lie, no matter what form it takes.
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I think the quoted criticism is valid and I don’t see anything about it that has to do with who started blogging first. In fact, you make his point by, once again, changing the subject. Whether you do this intentionally (evil) or not (dumb) really doesn’t matter a whole lot.
The net results is still that it serves Microsoft’s marketing purpose, which as usual completely overrides technical considerations and serves as another example of the company treating it’s users as slaves.
(I can’t resist)
I was recently asked if I’d like to take on a stealth marketing job for a small company and I said flat-out “no”. I think so much marketing today is unethical, and that is particularly so when it masquerades as something else (“free” seminars on various topics being my other “favorite” abuse of customers time and goodwill).
I think eventually the consumer will adjust to this, and to a large extent already has, becoming more cynical today than ever. Next time you ask yourself (or us) why is our (Microsoft’s) credibility still so bad even though we have done so much to clean up our act? Look back at this post.
Actions speak louder than words. Particularly these days. There is a point beyond which the assumption becomes: Everything from these people is a lie, no matter what form it takes.
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Tankko – I get Scoble’s whole feed (in fact, just glance at http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/feed/ to see it in XML). What is your reader?
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Tankko – I get Scoble’s whole feed (in fact, just glance at http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/feed/ to see it in XML). What is your reader?
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Robert :”My goal is to listen to them, have a conversation with them, and see where we can improve.” –
can you articlate what you mean when you say “them” and the “we” ?? And if the mission is to improve what does this mean?? Improve the blogging community, msft ??
What is your mission as a blogger? Just keep it simple please. Like tom peters/seth godin say – if you can’t say it 8 words-then its not worth much.
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Robert :”My goal is to listen to them, have a conversation with them, and see where we can improve.” –
can you articlate what you mean when you say “them” and the “we” ?? And if the mission is to improve what does this mean?? Improve the blogging community, msft ??
What is your mission as a blogger? Just keep it simple please. Like tom peters/seth godin say – if you can’t say it 8 words-then its not worth much.
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Oh please Robert, if Microsoft thought they could get away with shutting down your OS for DRM violations, they would in a heartbeat.
Let’s look at the real reason they don’t like Blu-Ray…the software interfaces for that are based on Java, while the interface for DVD-HD is…windows-based.
Hmm…no, i’m sure it’s a coincidence. Just like I’m sure that there’s already code in place and available to ensure that DVD-HD runs exactly as well on non-windows based platforms like Linux, *BSD, and Mac OS X as it does on the XBox360, standalone players, and Windows, and I’m ABSOLUTELY sure that you can provide a link to it with no problem at all, even though it’s based on WM9, and we all know how well that DRM works outside of Windows.
So I’m absolutely sure that you can find, and rather quickly, the links with the information we need to see that MS isn’t going to turn DVD-HD into “Must have Windows to play on a computer” schtick.
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Oh please Robert, if Microsoft thought they could get away with shutting down your OS for DRM violations, they would in a heartbeat.
Let’s look at the real reason they don’t like Blu-Ray…the software interfaces for that are based on Java, while the interface for DVD-HD is…windows-based.
Hmm…no, i’m sure it’s a coincidence. Just like I’m sure that there’s already code in place and available to ensure that DVD-HD runs exactly as well on non-windows based platforms like Linux, *BSD, and Mac OS X as it does on the XBox360, standalone players, and Windows, and I’m ABSOLUTELY sure that you can provide a link to it with no problem at all, even though it’s based on WM9, and we all know how well that DRM works outside of Windows.
So I’m absolutely sure that you can find, and rather quickly, the links with the information we need to see that MS isn’t going to turn DVD-HD into “Must have Windows to play on a computer” schtick.
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Tankko,
Scoble always does full feeds. He goes off about that a lot, partial feeds are one of his top pet peeves. And if you’ve ever been to his main blog page, you’ll see that there’s no reason for him to force people there anyway. He doesn’t have ads.
–Sucky Marketing Guy
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Tankko,
Scoble always does full feeds. He goes off about that a lot, partial feeds are one of his top pet peeves. And if you’ve ever been to his main blog page, you’ll see that there’s no reason for him to force people there anyway. He doesn’t have ads.
–Sucky Marketing Guy
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I knew it. Darth Scobleous all along.
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I knew it. Darth Scobleous all along.
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Great information on Microsoft. Here’s some more information about how Visto is suing Microsoft for publicity.
http://www.upi.com/Hi-Tech/view.php?StoryID=20051216-093508-3632r
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Great information on Microsoft. Here’s some more information about how Visto is suing Microsoft for publicity.
http://www.upi.com/Hi-Tech/view.php?StoryID=20051216-093508-3632r
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C’mon, there are millions of people who do not want to improve Microsoft. They want it to wither away. With minimal damage to the computing world. As fast as possible.
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C’mon, there are millions of people who do not want to improve Microsoft. They want it to wither away. With minimal damage to the computing world. As fast as possible.
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Anona: that’s BS. Please justify this “millions” number. At its height Slashdot only has something like 100,000 readers per day (whenever they link to me I only get a few thousand readers now).
Financial Times recently reported that Microsoft is the #1 most respected company in the world based on its surveys. For you to say “millions” is just FUD.
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Anona: that’s BS. Please justify this “millions” number. At its height Slashdot only has something like 100,000 readers per day (whenever they link to me I only get a few thousand readers now).
Financial Times recently reported that Microsoft is the #1 most respected company in the world based on its surveys. For you to say “millions” is just FUD.
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i just read about AOL dumping Microsoft for Google…my suggestion is that Microsoft builds a better relationship with Yahoo! seriously Microsoft + Yahoo can kick anyone’s ass in the whole “web 2.0” world…
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i just read about AOL dumping Microsoft for Google…my suggestion is that Microsoft builds a better relationship with Yahoo! seriously Microsoft + Yahoo can kick anyone’s ass in the whole “web 2.0” world…
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Robert, Forbes readers could give a rat’s ass about product or research. They respect MS based on their financials, nothing more. The second that MS’s financials don’t look as good, watch that ranking drop.
Don’t confuse “We like your money” with “We think you’re a great company doing great things”.
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Robert, Forbes readers could give a rat’s ass about product or research. They respect MS based on their financials, nothing more. The second that MS’s financials don’t look as good, watch that ranking drop.
Don’t confuse “We like your money” with “We think you’re a great company doing great things”.
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John wrote:
Don’t confuse “We like your money” with “We think you’re a great company doing great things”.
You were talking about Google, right?
MS (the Convicted Monopolist, Evil Empire, Curdler of Babies’ Milk, Untier of Shoelaces) has a 20 year record of delivering products and value to enterprises and consumers. After 20 years we’re only now hearing hints about potentially real competition from Google Net and Google Appliance. Don’t blame MS for competitor ineptitude.
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John wrote:
Don’t confuse “We like your money” with “We think you’re a great company doing great things”.
You were talking about Google, right?
MS (the Convicted Monopolist, Evil Empire, Curdler of Babies’ Milk, Untier of Shoelaces) has a 20 year record of delivering products and value to enterprises and consumers. After 20 years we’re only now hearing hints about potentially real competition from Google Net and Google Appliance. Don’t blame MS for competitor ineptitude.
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Do I hafta go over this again? Financial Times “survey” was conducted by PriceCoopers, not the Times. Price always flogs who they want to consult with. It is a marketing survey. You are hip to how these big corporate games are played, yes? It’s like all those ‘city-focused’ magazines that highlight and have feature stories on those who advertise. And if you look at their data, “most respected” usually translates out to “most recognized”.
But the financial picture of MFST isn’t anything to rally about either, stock stuck in a no move, no man’s land. Fast growth, to plodding, and increasingly inept, mature company.
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Do I hafta go over this again? Financial Times “survey” was conducted by PriceCoopers, not the Times. Price always flogs who they want to consult with. It is a marketing survey. You are hip to how these big corporate games are played, yes? It’s like all those ‘city-focused’ magazines that highlight and have feature stories on those who advertise. And if you look at their data, “most respected” usually translates out to “most recognized”.
But the financial picture of MFST isn’t anything to rally about either, stock stuck in a no move, no man’s land. Fast growth, to plodding, and increasingly inept, mature company.
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As far as the DRM situation goes, it isn’t productive to consider what a given company will or won’t do with the system, but what is possible in the system.
If Microsoft would never in a thousand years use trusted computing for censorship, bully for them, but there’s others who will. That’s what worries people. Not the threat of any one company being dumb enough to abuse it, the odds of that are rather low, but the threat that some companies will abuse it is far too high for my tastes.
I’m making this argument not because DRM is likely to inconvenience me, at least as long as there’s still analog output, but because it’s bad for your customers. Companies, like Microsoft, who build in DRM are selling out their customers.
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As far as the DRM situation goes, it isn’t productive to consider what a given company will or won’t do with the system, but what is possible in the system.
If Microsoft would never in a thousand years use trusted computing for censorship, bully for them, but there’s others who will. That’s what worries people. Not the threat of any one company being dumb enough to abuse it, the odds of that are rather low, but the threat that some companies will abuse it is far too high for my tastes.
I’m making this argument not because DRM is likely to inconvenience me, at least as long as there’s still analog output, but because it’s bad for your customers. Companies, like Microsoft, who build in DRM are selling out their customers.
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I don’t buy the idea that Scoble is intended to distract us from MS’s “dark side”, for the reason that MS’s dark side simply can’t be concealed.
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I don’t buy the idea that Scoble is intended to distract us from MS’s “dark side”, for the reason that MS’s dark side simply can’t be concealed.
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Brian, to the investors, product doesn’t count, only financials. What part of “They only care about the bottom line” don’t you seem to understand?
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Brian, to the investors, product doesn’t count, only financials. What part of “They only care about the bottom line” don’t you seem to understand?
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John, I hear you about the financials, MS has been languishing for awhile — I just think that MS, as a mature company with a full stack of time-tested and entrenched apps will weather better than a search company with a P/E close to 100 or any number of other competitors. Having lived through one bubble already we know it’s all about longevity, right?
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John, I hear you about the financials, MS has been languishing for awhile — I just think that MS, as a mature company with a full stack of time-tested and entrenched apps will weather better than a search company with a P/E close to 100 or any number of other competitors. Having lived through one bubble already we know it’s all about longevity, right?
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John: actually, our financials are fantastic. It’s our stock price that hasn’t moved.
Microsoft PE: 22.72.
Apple PE: 45.64
Google PE: 95.29
Which has more upside? I know which one I’m betting on.
Our revenue and profits are growing at a very healthy clip (are far higher than when I started working at Microsoft two years ago) but the stock price has hardly budged since I started two years ago.
That tells me there’s upside on our stock price. Especially with major new versions of Office and Windows coming next year (and a bunch of other stuff too).
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John: actually, our financials are fantastic. It’s our stock price that hasn’t moved.
Microsoft PE: 22.72.
Apple PE: 45.64
Google PE: 95.29
Which has more upside? I know which one I’m betting on.
Our revenue and profits are growing at a very healthy clip (are far higher than when I started working at Microsoft two years ago) but the stock price has hardly budged since I started two years ago.
That tells me there’s upside on our stock price. Especially with major new versions of Office and Windows coming next year (and a bunch of other stuff too).
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Oh man, they have kidnapped your brain, the numbers bear zero relationship to a stock price; rationality doesn’t play in these waters. The street is about emotion, feel-gooding, and the oft-delayed albatross of an OS that will have a long long deployment periods and yet another Office version — such is not going to move prices. With heavy R&D, Xbox, BU, Mobile losses, and new-found reorg’s, doubts about the vague Ozzie ‘Live’ announcements, and increasing reliance on patent portfolios and that cash hoard, and stumbling Google copycat moves. Your stock is gonna stay right were it is at, if not drop. Vista and Office 12 won’t move it, not at least till 2008. But then the market is a strange beast, anyone who thinks they have it licked, better watch out, as that’s when it all falls apart.
Well at least Liddell gave us a cent.
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Oh man, they have kidnapped your brain, the numbers bear zero relationship to a stock price; rationality doesn’t play in these waters. The street is about emotion, feel-gooding, and the oft-delayed albatross of an OS that will have a long long deployment periods and yet another Office version — such is not going to move prices. With heavy R&D, Xbox, BU, Mobile losses, and new-found reorg’s, doubts about the vague Ozzie ‘Live’ announcements, and increasing reliance on patent portfolios and that cash hoard, and stumbling Google copycat moves. Your stock is gonna stay right were it is at, if not drop. Vista and Office 12 won’t move it, not at least till 2008. But then the market is a strange beast, anyone who thinks they have it licked, better watch out, as that’s when it all falls apart.
Well at least Liddell gave us a cent.
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Robert…thank you for proving my point. Forbes and the money market don’t give a rat’s ass what Microsoft does to make money as long as they do.
If the time comes when your financials suck, then watch the wall street love evaporate like acetone
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Robert…thank you for proving my point. Forbes and the money market don’t give a rat’s ass what Microsoft does to make money as long as they do.
If the time comes when your financials suck, then watch the wall street love evaporate like acetone
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New versions of windows and office?
Nobody cares. Its the web browser, stupid.
As for OS upgrades, why would people upgrade their windows OS? They’re lagging as far behind as they can now because upgrades are too expensive, result in down time and migration pain, typically require better hardware, and don’t provide compelling new value.
Office? I never use it. I spend most time in web browser, email, and calendar software. Word processing? MS Word is awful. Maybe the excel crowd wants something new – I don’t need it to do any more than it did 15 years ago.
Windows and Office and Windows and Office and Windows and Office. Just keep on singing that note – most people have moved into a new model of personal productivity and interaction. Plus, those apps are just plain dull.
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New versions of windows and office?
Nobody cares. Its the web browser, stupid.
As for OS upgrades, why would people upgrade their windows OS? They’re lagging as far behind as they can now because upgrades are too expensive, result in down time and migration pain, typically require better hardware, and don’t provide compelling new value.
Office? I never use it. I spend most time in web browser, email, and calendar software. Word processing? MS Word is awful. Maybe the excel crowd wants something new – I don’t need it to do any more than it did 15 years ago.
Windows and Office and Windows and Office and Windows and Office. Just keep on singing that note – most people have moved into a new model of personal productivity and interaction. Plus, those apps are just plain dull.
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Innocent: >New versions of windows and office? Nobody cares. Its the web browser, stupid.
That’s bull. Come out into the real world and meet real users who find that the Web browser doesn’t do everything they need to do. Geez, where do you guys make this stuff up? It’s almost like you work for a competitor who has a vested interest in browsers.
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Innocent: >New versions of windows and office? Nobody cares. Its the web browser, stupid.
That’s bull. Come out into the real world and meet real users who find that the Web browser doesn’t do everything they need to do. Geez, where do you guys make this stuff up? It’s almost like you work for a competitor who has a vested interest in browsers.
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‘Please justify this “millions” number.’
Start with 25 million Mac user, add several million Linux users, throw in a tbs of cayenne pepper and you got MSFT chowder.
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‘Please justify this “millions” number.’
Start with 25 million Mac user, add several million Linux users, throw in a tbs of cayenne pepper and you got MSFT chowder.
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I’m told that most Linux and Mac users don’t hate Microsoft. At least that’s what their advocates say everytime I bring up their motivations.
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I’m told that most Linux and Mac users don’t hate Microsoft. At least that’s what their advocates say everytime I bring up their motivations.
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Out of those 30-40 million you’ll certainly get a few million who’d love to see MSFT get its comeuppance, which was my point.
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Out of those 30-40 million you’ll certainly get a few million who’d love to see MSFT get its comeuppance, which was my point.
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Mr Scoble:
For approximately 2 days, I am unable to publish or post on my blog because Blogger.com locked my blog. It is not a spam blog but a blog that I use as for an Independent Study that I am conducting at USC.
The blog was locked when I decided to open a discussion about Internet2. Is locking my blog a form of censorship on the issue?
I received an email from Blogger.com saying that my blog is unlocked – it is not. And in 8 days – according to the message on my blog since time is ticking away – Blogger.com will delete my blog.
Could you help?
Fiona Torrance – “We can do it!”
http://bizblogreview.blogspot.com
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Mr Scoble:
For approximately 2 days, I am unable to publish or post on my blog because Blogger.com locked my blog. It is not a spam blog but a blog that I use as for an Independent Study that I am conducting at USC.
The blog was locked when I decided to open a discussion about Internet2. Is locking my blog a form of censorship on the issue?
I received an email from Blogger.com saying that my blog is unlocked – it is not. And in 8 days – according to the message on my blog since time is ticking away – Blogger.com will delete my blog.
Could you help?
Fiona Torrance – “We can do it!”
http://bizblogreview.blogspot.com
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