On Dec 31, 2006, at 9:06 AM, Stephen the Cook wrote:
> Not even close in a comparison to the reality at hand. You can
> attempt to
> load Vista on any x86 hardware and YMMV. Ram, processor, video
> card are all
> big factors to the successful running of the software, wouldn't you
> agree?
> Because there is a large mix of these M$ cleared that as a SMART
> advertising
> expense.
I guess you missed the part where these laptops where expressly
*not* sent to the bloggers for review purposes. They went out of
their way to make it clear that there was absolutely no requirement
that a review of any sort be done, much less published. It was a gift
in every sense of the word.
Publications regularly review software, and invite the companies to
show it off in its best light. Big packages such as SQL Server or
Oracle aren't reviewed by sending off a disk and having an
inexperienced reviewer try to figure it out; instead, the companies
send teams with experience and the necessary hardware to install,
configure, and optimize the setup. When the review is concluded, the
publication keeps neither the software nor the hardware - nor do they
keep the techs.
Anyway, we're back to discussing whether this move was OK for
Microsoft, when that isn't the issue at all. It's as though I want to
talk about congressmen accepting freebies from lobbyists being wrong,
and you keep talking about how lobbyists are smart to offer freebies
to legislators.
> Do I think you cross the ethics line for providing the package
> loaded for
> the reviewer? No! If there was a 100 dollar bill in the DVD
> drive and a
> stock certificate between the screen and the keyboard, then yes.
Oh. So $100 is an ethical no-no, but a $2K+ laptop is just hunky-
dory. Do you teach your kids that if a stranger offers you $100 to
get in the car with him, don't do it, but if he offers you a state-of-
the-art laptop, it's OK?
Sorry, but all your attempts at focusing on Microsoft's ethics
doesn't distract me from the main point of this discussion: any
blogger who accepted this gift and didn't immediately disclose that
fact in their writings is unethical.
-- Ed Leafe
-- http://leafe.com
-- http://dabodev.com
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