Re: Smear campaign? Ha!

["Norm" <normanmo@clark.net>]

On Wed, 9 Jun 1999 22:10:00 -0400, Steve Cohen wrote:

>I had to laugh about Microsoft's tactics today.  Their tough dealing
>with IBM was justified because IBM had engaged in a "smear campaign"
>against them.
>
>http://www.thestandard.net/articles/special/display/0,2168,4868,00.html?home.ff
>
>Pepperman had asked witness Garry Norris, the IBM official who
>led the Windows licensing negotiations between the companies
>from 1995-97, whether he had ever seen a white paper written
>by IBM entitled "OS/2 Warp vs. Windows 95: A Decision Maker's
>Guide to 32-Bit Operating System Technology."
>
>What a hoot?  Has Microsoft never released White Papers?  Compared
>itself to other companies or technologies?  There's nothing illegal
>about advertising.  Microsoft shows themselves as having no sense of
>proportion.  An advertising brochure and illegal attempts to extend a
>monopoly are all the same.


     Actually it seems that IBM engaged in something quite foreign to
M$, marketing a product to compete on its' own merits.  The 'white
paper' is designed as a comparison between the two products, something
M$ tries to avoid whenever possible.  Calling this a "smear campaign"
just shows M$'s paranoid mindset (albeit I might be a little paranoid
over direct comparisons if I was peddling something like windoze).


>Reminds me of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago (father of the
>present Mayor), who once said,
>"They have vilified me, they have crucified me, they have even
>criticized me."


     Good one!!


 ...Cheers,

 ...Norm

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