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> Wait, Microsoft makes chairs? No, not directly. But the part of that chair? Manufactured in facilities running on, you guess it, Microsoft software. Transported in trucks built by Microsoft software, on roads built by Microsoft software, sold by companies running Microsoft software. The whole premise of this paragraph is wrong. Yes, most big businesses run Microsoft Windows, but most people hate and struggle with i…
Very true, Microsoft's business level software does not have as much visibility IMHO. People underestimate the role their software plays.
>> Imagine you got out of that chair for a second. Walked across the street to get a cup of coffee. Got hit by a bus. The ambulance that picks you up? Microsoft. The hospital that saves you? Microsoft. The doctor? Trained at a school running Microsoft, using delicate instruments running Microsoft. If you prefer not getting hit by a bus, think about the role that Microsoft has had in making sure your baby was born healthy.
What role, Windows, SQL Server, Azure? Microsoft may have helped there but so has the janitor who keeps the hospital clean, the barista who makes coffee for the doctors. Doesn't mean I'm going to thank Microsoft for saving my life when I get hit by a bus. This is a valid argument, but a very weak one because Microsoft is one cog in so many that keeps a hospital running.
Rest of the arguments in the article are quite valid, but when some tells me my ambulance is running Microsoft software I have a horrible flashback with a BSOD.
I can't see pushing Surface/Windows 8/Office/insert MS product here on students (especially young ones) being beneficial to anyone other than Microsoft. As a student who was expected to format essays according to Word and to use (Excel, Powerpoint, even FRONTPAGE) extensively in K-12 education, I really can't see a way to put this strategy in a positive light. "ad-free" bing for schools? Really? What's more poisonous--getting students dependent on a stack of proprietary software, or a search engine with ads?
1970s-style PR. This mirrors the oil company messaging: "pay no attention to the oil spills and CIA-sponsored coups de etat, we're the swell people that make the petrochemicals in that ziploc baggie in your little girl's lunchbox." "We power the trucks that bring organic vegetables to your dinner table." Microsoft: For the Children.
We don't make the MBA/OSX/Chrome you use to write this comment - we make the chair you sit on possible.
Microsoft never did any of these industries any favors - they just managed to capture the market and extract a tax for a number of years. That is why the public does not like them. When they have to fight with Windows to log into their laptop and wait 20 minutes while it does so (Windows Vista?), they blame Microsoft. Microsoft's technical inabilities and millions of man hours wasted patching and rebooting their OS comes at the cost of most of the world's population being less than impressed by Microsoft and those who work there.
This whole post is written merely as a rebuttal to the widely publicized article about how Microsoft is telling lies about Bing. The rebuttal itself comes down to "he's lying, not us!" and "we don't track the results from the Bing It On challenge". Both positions are pathetic as the Yale article has no reason to lie, and the only reason a company would not track results is because the results are obviously unfavorable and so they cooked up their own favorable ones.
You want to know why nobody respects Microsoft? Because Microsoft employees post articles like this which are so far from reality it leaves you wondering how they drive to work.
The worst thing about working for Microsoft? You have to run Windows.
1970s-style PR. This mirrors the oil company messaging: "pay no attention to the oil spills and CIA-sponsored coups de etat, we're the swell people that make the petrochemicals in that ziploc baggie in your little girl's lunchbox." "We power the trucks that bring organic vegetables to your dinner table." Microsoft: For the Children.
More like a 90s BASF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NQuMr45xd4 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJHPpsb3FzM We don't make the MBA/OSX/Chrome you use to write this comment - we make the chair you sit on possible.
In a weird way, minus the "but really we're great" part, it must be hell to spend your life touting Microsoft when they are so hated. Because in these networked days, a PR person can't go home and tell their friends "they suck, I just work there" because things get around much more quickly.