Microsoft Dismisses British Objections to Anti-Linux Ad:

[Godric 0]

Quote:

Microsoft Dismisses British Objections to Anti-Linux Ad: Microsoft sources said that a British regulatory agency's objections to an anti-Linux advertisement published as part of its controversial "Get the Facts" campaign are moot because the ad is no longer running.

The British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) decision issued Wednesday found that a Microsoft advertisement placed in a British spe[censored]t magazine claiming that open-source Linux was far more expensive to run than Windows was misleading. ASA called on Microsoft to amend the ad.

Tracey Pretorius, the manager for Microsoft UK, said the company had been working with the ASA to "understand and address their concerns about the advertisement in question.

"Our customers continue to value information comparing the various vendor technology offerings. We believe it is important to continue to provide this kind of factual information," she said.

A source close to Microsoft and familiar with the matter said Wednesday that Microsoft had worked with the ASA in advance and submitted all ads for general approval before they were run, as was its standard policy on advertising.

"The ad in question was cleared, in advance, by the ASA. Evidently they're going back on that based on anonymous inquiries challenging the advertisement," the source said.

The source suggested that the issue is moot because "these advertisements aren't even running now as they only ran from February to May of this year in the UK," the source said.

Microsoft launched in January the "Get the Facts" campaign, which is designed to give customers information about the advantages of using its Windows operating system versus Linux, its open-source competitor.

That campaign is the latest attempt by the Redmond, Wash., software company to counter the success of Linux and is in line with the strategy embraced by the company's open-source and Linux strategist, Martin Taylor. Taylor has said his personal mission is to publicize studies that showed Microsoft software beating open-source alternatives on return on investment.


But many of the statements and "facts" have been challenged by the Linux and open-source community. Source: eWEEK

lol. So Microsoftish. funny but true

[Dapper Dan 0]

It's gonna get worse. Microsoft will do EVERYTHING they deem necessary to destroy any and all competition.

[SoulNothing 0]

i just got a issue of pc mag and it was about is windows at fault

 

anyway gates said linux had more holes and a outside source did a study and find only 128 in xp and 268 in debian the get the facts ads are bad though my computer teacher points them out to me just because i use linux

[Dapper Dan 0]

I doubt the findings in that story were reached in an unbiased way. Besides, it doesn't matter if XP has ten "holes" and Linux has a thousand, it's still our operating system of CHOICE. That's what's important.

[Mel 0]

Interesting.

Other than playing a couple games,I do everything I

do with windows just as well with linux and all linux

has cost me is monthly ISP rates, which I will have

with or without linux.

 

[taeuler 0]

Is the message of this article that the cost of hardware, or just the cost of running the hardware was considered.

 

Quote:

A graph used in the advert compared the cost in US dollars per megabit per second of a Linux image running on two z900 mainframe CPUs, with a Windows Server 2003 image running on two 900 MHz Intel Xeon CPUs.

 

But the ASA ruling said the hardware chosen for Linux was more expensive than it needed to be and could have influenced the outcome of the analysis.

 

Regardless the z-series seem to be rather expensive, this refers to the z990, and MS used z900. But this propably gives a reasable idea of how expensive z900s are.

[OldSpiceAP 0]

More expensive?

 

I run 5 computers in my basement on my network in addition to my server. I don't even want to think about how much it would have cost me if I had used windows. Just the operating system cost would have been nearly 1000 dollars, plus all software I would need to get - when they already have a free linux conterpart

 

photoshop - gimp

microsoft office - open office

 

I prefer gimp and openoffice over their expensive counterparts anyways. I find them more intuative to use and of a generally higher quality - plus no need to pay for the latest version. I can stay up to date to the day, and not shell out anything other than the few donations I make to projects I feel are important to the linux community.

 

ITs absurd to think if Microsoft as a cheaper alternative to linux - especially in server deployyment. Down time costs money - and if you choose microsoft - you will have plenty of down time

 

 

 

 

- So Long and Thanks for all the Fish