Re: MS Talks about the IBM AS/400

Didn't you see the story about the astroturf campaign?  Here's the lead to
the story:

     http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/insites/dvorak/jd980413.htm

 April, 1998

            Caught in the Act!

                           By John C. Dvorak

            The revelations reported in the Los Angeles Times last week
regarding
            an elaborate Microsoft plan--to snooker both the government
and the
            public with a fake "grass roots" campaign orchestrated by
dozens of
            large and powerful public-relations agencies--sickened me.

            Part of the plan was to buy off writers who would write
glowing
            reports about the company and place them as opinion pieces
around
            the country. It's not as if companies don't hire writers to
write for
            them under various circumstances. That's fairly common in
trade
            publishing. What's uncommon and unethical is to hire someone
as a
            shill to parrot the party line of a company as if it were the
writer's
            honest opinion. This casts a shadow over everything positive
that has
            been written about Microsoft from seemingly independent
sources.
            Even the most sincere fan of Microsoft may now be reappraised
as a
            shill for the company. This public-relations fiasco is beyond
a botch
            for Microsoft. It's the biggest mistake I've ever seen the
company

etc, so on, and so forth...  

In <359525D6.8D061D36@IQUEST.NET>, on 06/27/98 
   at 01:03 PM, Chuck Lewis <CLEWIS@IQUEST.NET> said:

>JOHN !!

>It's NOT just you - maybe just you and me <BG>...

>I read it last night and was thinking the same thing - WHAT a load of MS
>#@&% !!!

>I was, I guess "surprised", to see that in this publication. The "author"
>just let MS "spew" whatever they wanted, challenging NOTHING, etc. The
>REAL rub was the MS rubbish about scalability. Give me a BREAK - there is
>NO WAY MS can challenge the AS/400 at this point. Ditto for reliability,
>etc. and cost of ownership, etc. is questionable !!!

>VERY disapointing in my opinion.

>To everyone who hasn't read this article, please track it down and tell
>John and I that we aren't alone :-) !!!!

>Chuck

>John Carr wrote:

>> Has anyone read the article in this month Midrange Computing's mag?
>>
>> "MICROSOFT PRODUCT MANAGERS TALK ABOUT IBM'S AS/400"
>>
>> Is it just me, or does it really look like an Info-mercial by MS posing as
>> a objective article ??
>>
>> I guess it's just me.
>>
>> John Carr
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-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------
boothm@ibm.net
Booth Martin
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