The idea of a "gift" is not uncommon in the media. Often, the
"journalist" will get to keep the item they are reviewing if they
write something favourable. I heard a few years ago that Sony was
giving away PlayStations to anyone in the media who said something
good about the console, even just in passing. This was informal; they
wouldn't tell people "say something nice about us and we'll give you a
PlayStation". Instead they would reward those who said good things out
of the blue. This meant there was no "bribe" as such, but
"journalists" and presenters were encouraged to evangelise the
PlayStation in the hope of getting one from Sony.
For a software company, this is especially easy. A pressed CD only
costs a few cents nowadays (when mass-produced, of course). When M$
donates software to schools and charities, they can say "we donated XX
million dollars worth of software" when the cost to them was only a
few bucks. They aren't losing potential customers by giving the
software away, since these non-profit organisations couldn't have
afforded it anyway.
On Fri, 15 Jun 2001 20:43, Romanator wrote:
> I bet Microsoft provided a lotta software as a "gift" for writing
> these articles. There will be more to come. Many times the writers
> must ship the drafts to Microsoft for approval before it goes to
> print. However, I wouldn't get alarmed. They are blowing a lot of
> hot air.
>
> Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
> > There have been many rebuttals published to this article all over
> > the Internet: aboutlinux.com, linuxtoday.com, lwn.net, and even
> > ZDNet itself. Gartner Dataquest's figures (sponsored by Microsoft)
> > are in direct contrast to those made by other research companies.
> > IDC, for example, gives GNU/Linux a share of about 24%. IDC and
> > others recognise that most GNU/Linux installations are not bought
> > shrink-wrapped like proprietary OSs are, and that a single copy
> > can be used on an unlimited number of computers.
> >
> > Also, many vendors don't give the option of buying a computer
> > without Windows. People are forced to pay for Windows licenses,
> > but when they get their computers they wipe the hard drive and
> > install GNU/Linux. As the computer is not purchased with GNU/Linux
> > initially installed, it is counted as a Windows machine.
> >
> > On Fri, 15 Jun 2001 17:01, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > > A story from www.theregister.co.uk:
> > >
> > > (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/19662.html)
> > >
> > > No one's using Linux, claims Microsoft
> > > By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
> > > Posted: 13/06/2001 at 11:21 GMT
> > >
> > > Gartner Dataquest has pegged the proportion
> > > of Linux servers shipped in the United States at 8.6 per cent.
> > >
> > > Gartner analyst Jeffery Hewitt claims that
> > > this figure - which includes 'white box' shipments, but excludes
> > > server appliances such as Sun's Cobalt range - is dramatically
> > > lower than the 20 per cent plus cited by arch rivals IDC. Of
> > > that 8.6 per cent, eight per cent is attributed to Red Hat and
> > > 0.6 per cent to other distros.
> > >
> > > The survey is dated May 30, but was made
> > > public yesterday.
> > >
> > > We don't usually hear about analyst surveys
> > > from vendors in advance of publication. But yesterday a note
> > > dropped in from Microsoft's PR company, Waggener Edstrom.
> > >
> > > "8.6 per cent is... certainly in line with
> > > what we are hearing from our customers and partners," wrote a
> > > friendly Wagg-Ed flak.
> > >
> > > Now there's some dispute over what a
> > > 'shipment' actually involves, as NewsForge's Rob 'roblimo'
> > > Miller points out in this analysis. And he has a very good
> > > point: for example, Gartner pegs Linux shipments in the
> > > supercomputer space as 'zero' this year. In fact Linux is well
> > > established on commodity parallel clusters at many scientific
> > > sites. Many of these were assembled in-house, so a shipment
> > > clearly doesn't correlate to a working installation.
> > >
> > > However, Microsoft's pre-emptive strike may
> > > be tactical. Hewitt actually predicts that volume shipments of
> > > Linux - even using Gartner's contested definition of 'shipment'
> > > and 'server' - will mushroom in the next four years.
> > >
> > > Total worldwide Linux deployment will
> > > quadruple from 2.4 million to 9.1 million, predicts Gartner,
> > > with explosive growth in the supercomputer area: up from that
> > > dubious 'zero' this year to over 5000 by 2005. In the $25,000 to
> > > $100,000 range - the low-end company workhorse - Linux shipments
> > > will increase ninefold. In the sub-$5000 space, Linux will grow
> > > over six fold.
> > >
> > > So this may be a case of the Beast getting
> > > its retaliation in first.
> > >
> > > Might be interesting to know :-)
> > > Paul
> >
> > --
> > Sridhar Dhanapalan.
> > "There are two major products that come from Berkeley:
> > LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
> > -- Jeremy S. Anderson
--
Sridhar Dhanapalan.
"There are two major products that come from Berkeley:
LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
-- Jeremy S. Anderson
