RSSMicrosoft's 'Get The Facts' Linux Site Replaced
By Ed Oswald | Published August 23, 2007, 4:26 PM
Microsoft has decided to axe its "Get The Facts" site, instead replacing it with a less corrosive "Compare" page that compares Windows and Linux in a less confrontational way.
The former site was quite controversial, as it included parts of a study conducted in 2002 that was later revealed to have been influenced by Microsoft to look at Windows more favorably. Even in light of the controversy, Microsoft kept the site up, using it in the company's increasingly hostile battle with open source.
It is not known specifically why Microsoft decided to pull the site, although its replacement could provide some clues. In the comparison section, most of the negative material is targeted at Red Hat, an open source company that has so far refused to sign a patent agreement with the Redmond company.
Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley speculated that Microsoft's open-source partners may have asked Microsoft to tone down the site. "Perhaps Microsoft agreed to do away with the site in order to regain ground it has lost with the open-source community around its patent-saber rattling," she also suggested.
The company had previously said it was not going to take down the site when rumors first circulated earlier in the year. An official response from the company did not provide any extra details, either.
Microsoft claimed that its customers were looking for "credible 3rd party information from other customers and industry experts," and were looking for it in a variety of formats. Although the company did not explicitly say so, it sounded like the move was very much in response to the criticisms that the research on "Get the Facts" may have not been impartial.
News of the site's demise first appeared in Foley's All About Microsoft blog on Thursday.
It simply means - M$ won this round vs. Linux. They don't need "offensive" Get Facts anymore.
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|You would care if you had to buy an Intel Quad Core system with 4 Gigabytes of Ram and a 512mb Graphics card just to run the OS, which could well be Microsofts OS if they keep going the way they are.
Linux exists because Microsoft forces people to buy more expersive computers and they spread FUD about Linux all the time, Microsoft use under the belt tactics and throw their weight around all the time.
I am very tired of the holier than thou garbage constantly being given out from Microsoft supporters. The only reason Microsoft exist today is the very large sums of cash pumped in by people like you - robmanic44.
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|Yes thats exactly how business works. No one is forcing you to go out and pay big bucks for a new Microsoft OS. If you want a low end system run a low end OS. Go get a 386 and run windows 3.1 . Linux has its uses (i run my servers on it) but - it just so happends that microsoft owns the market - thus if you want to be in the mainstream (which most americans do) you will go with Microsoft. Apple has an amazing OS and they are only 6% of the market computer market share, people just like who the big dog is... period.
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|I have run servers using Gentoo, Solaris , and Windows 2003. I currently have 10 Linux flavors on hand. With the exception of of an old Dell XPS, I built all my systems including the server. I gave the server to a friend because I got tired of spending so much time maintaining it. He is currently running Linux end to end.
I figure at this juncture that approximately 1 in 100,000 users are capable of running a Linux desktop system. The installation on most of the newer distributions takes less than 45 minutes. Unfortunately, that's when the problems start. You ask these people if they can tar and gzip a file and they're immediately lost. So when my friends ask me about Linux I usually recommend running Knoppix Live. Cost nothing and has none of the headaches.
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|no, people done LIKE who the big dog is... if they did you wouldnt have so many people b****ing about it.. they just accept the fact that they have to either spend some time getting to know actually how to USE a computer, or take the usual way out and pay huge sums of cash to have a s***ty os that runs like crap but lets them continue to be morons.
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|/. rules~!
/oops, wrong forum.
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|I have a severe, chronic mental disorder accompnied by frontal lobe brain damage. I'm subject to several types of seizures. I am required to take a ton of meds. Now ask me if I give a flying freak what OS is on any of my systems.
I am very tired of the holier than thou garbage constantly being given out from Linux supporters. The only reason Redhat exist today is the very large sums of cash pumped in by IBM.
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|Every marketing campaign eventually comes to an end and gets replaced, no matter how successful or unsuccessful.
Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?
Where's the beef?
Get the Facts had its run and it was time to retire it and do something a little different. Big whoop.
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|Microsoft obviously hired away some press folk from the Bush admin.
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|This is only a strategy. Maybe important issues were never considered, and this is the way to avoid considering them. I.e. being a home and strictly personal user, all present and foreseen Ms OS do connect your computer to the network during the loading process, not leaving to you the right to decide if you want to enter into the Internet or not. This way they force you to behave like a network administrator, but many millions of individual users don't have the slightest idea of what dangers it means: they only have a desktop PC and a very superficial knowledge of computing. BTW at home I abandoned Microsoft Windows 98 SE to use Linux to keep defending my personal independence: I may use the network or not, but never without my previous consentment or against my will. My home is my castle.
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|Microsoft has always known that "Get the Facts" was one big pile of baloney.
Iowa left Microsoft exposed after it showed Microsoft producing iffy results. Here:
,----[ Quotes with annotation ]
| "(Microsoft manager:) I don't like the fact that the report show us losing
| on TCO on webservers. I don't like the fact that the report show us losing
| on availability (windows was down more than linux). And I don't like the
| fact that the reports says nothing new is coming with windows .net server."
|
| [...]
|
| "I don't like it to be public on the doc that we sponsored it because I
| don't think the outcome is as favorable as we had hoped. I just don't like
| competitors using it as ammo against us. It is easier if it doesn't mention
| that we sponsored it."
`----
http://slated.antitrust....011607/9000/PX09695.pdf
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|So by taking down their 'Get the facts' site, does that mean that Microsoft was LYING the whole time?
No, just paying others to lie. They just hosted the lies they bought. For another Microsoft whopper, check out their latest lies.
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|M$ has always had the upper-hand. They are easy for the typical end-user and productive for the techs. Let us not forget the 80's and early 90's when M$ products ruled (as they do now) but were difficult for most. Now they are easy for most and the techs all want it to be hard and old looking, thats why linux has a foothold. Try integrating java into linux vs windows. THE END!!!
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|Darn, you're right. :^)
Just installed Linux on my home's "public" computer. I must admit I did it somewhat as a test. Results? Windows users sit down in front of it a few minutes to maybe a half-hour and call it quits.
No everything isn't set up perfectly, on purpose. But even doing something very trivial has been beyond all of them.
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|And the reason is people try to use Linux like Windows. It's not, and isn't trying to be (nor should it). Linux is much easier to learn if you haven't used a computer before - but if you're Windows trained, anything that doesn't work as Windows does is going to piss you off. Mac users would have an easier time converting, but I can't see why they would.
As a tech who supports 99% Windows machines, it's extremely difficult for me to adapt to Linux. Yet I realise that each time I do achieve a goal of mine on Linux, it actually would be fairly intuitive if I wasn't tying to apply my Windows-logic to it.
People have trained themselves to use Windows. They expect to install Linux and not have to learn how to use it again. That's simply not the case. It's a different way of doing things, and you need to go back to the start and realise your learning to use the PC all over again. If you can't do that, Linux is not for you. If you can, it's quite rewarding, and in some ways makes far more sense than the Windows method.
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|M$ M$ M$...im so cool because i put in a $ to denote money which M$ is ALL about!!!
Apple or Red Hat doesn't try to make money but M$ does! M$ M$ M$ Sux!
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|I've been thinking that the whole time reading these comments.
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|You obviously don't read many newsgroups. M$ or Micro$oft has been used like forever. That is just how it is. Sorry it crushes your little universe.
M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$ M$
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|I agree with you, but let me add my 2c. These legions of people everywhere who insist on labelling Microsoft M$ are obviously suffering from a hatred of companies who are commercially successful. OOh, Microsoft make money, what a disgrace! That's what sucks, but that's the way communism thinks.
Oh, and like sheep they all follow each other repeating their mantra, if you know what I mean.
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|As a former business school professor at some of this country's best b-schools, and a person who both loves and preaches capitalism, I have to disagree with you.
There is good capitalism and bad capitalism. And on that scale, I'll let each individual decide just where Microsoft falls.
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|Let's try this out... hmm...
$ony, $ony, $ony...
Yep, works great!
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|Don't you mean M$?
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|Actually that looks pretty good since $ony and M$ are all about $crewing their customers over.
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|Gee, one of the many M$ FUD sites about Linux now directly attacks a company that will not bow to their bogus patent claims.
Prehaps rather than spending so much time and effort on these FUD sites, they should spend time fixes the horrible disaster that is Vista.
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|Indeed...when I had XP I was slightly aggravated with Microsoft but since I've tried Vista out I'm just outright disgusted.
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|Vista is fine. A little overkill when they could have just improved on XP but Vista certainly isnt a disaster.
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|I guess it depends what you mean by disaster...totally unstable, lack of driver support, slow performance, application incompatibilities, etc...
And i just read a story how listening to music slows your network performance as Vista is checking to make sure you are not streaming it out. LMAO! Yeah i want to buy that steaming pile of dung.
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|It's also certainly nothing about which to cheer. I have twice installed it on two computers and then uninstalled it. Gained nothing with it; missing nothing without it.
(Note: I've been using computers continuously in some form--IBM punchcards to Vista--since 1975 and have never quit on a new OS before.)
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|I dunno, the recent WGA problem would lead me to believe it's a disaster. 5 years and we get this piece of tripe? C'mon. I'd want a lot more to actually shell out money for the thing.
For most people though, it's free. They download a cracked version or it comes with their new Dell/HP/Acer. It's only the die-hards that buy the thing off the shelf - and I'd be pissed if I did!
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|I still don't see why all the hype about Linux. It certainly isn't something I'd use for a server, when I could use BSD. In fact, I'd honestly have to pick windows over Linux. That's probably why it's getting all the attention, Microsoft doesn't dare throw up comparisons with real Unix OSes.
Edit: Hmmm.... on the front page it's all Linux but everywhere else it says Unix. So I dunno.
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|* yawn *
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|Couldn't have put it better myself.
What exactly was your point, Ian? Some people prefer BSD, sure. Others prefer Linux. If you can't see why, then you're either blind or too closed-minded to even be involved in this discussion.
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|he/she is just a troll. Anyone that _actually_ uses a BSD variant, would never go to Windoze over Linux; you have no control.
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|M$ caught yet again.......
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|Who cares.. MS owns linux on a stellar level. Linux is just a flee on the back of the pitbull that is Microsoft.
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|In every way that counts, from a business point of view. But from a technical point of view, Linux already has the upper-hand, IMO, and will only extend that lead with it's open and flexible design.
Now go join the fanboy revolution over @ Microsoft.com.
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|There is a little irony of an obvious Linux Fanboy accusing another of being a Microsoft fanboy. You all look like idiots! These are operating systems, a bunch of 1's and 0's on a harddrive. Do you really think that any of the rhetorical arguments you make will convince someone to just switch their operating system? "Open and flexible design" means absolutely NOTHING to most people and from a different point of view can also apply to Windows. People do not use computers just to stare at the OS desktop.
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|Whatever turns your crank, sparky. [rolls eyes]
In Linux the user doesn't have to worry as much of the important things as they have to with Windows and especially Vista. After several months using Vista I switched over to Ubuntu and only dual boot a stripped down version of XP for games only. If it weren't for the games I would get rid of Windows completely.
BTW, I have around 25 years experience with M$' OSes so I know what I'm talking about.
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|I'm not a Linux fanboy, I'm afraid - I use Windows almost exclusively, and run a Ubuntu install for testing purposes.
Thanks for the moniker, but I'm undeserving. Your fanboy radar seems to be malfunctioning. Please try again. :)
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