[Am-info] Dishonesty in ads]

[Mike Stephen]

It might be time to remind people that although the courts are
focused on what they term Microsoft consumers as the
marketplace that Microsoft caters to, it is not.  For a long
time now Microsoft has not been interested enough to market to
the consumer.  They are focused on the corporate and reseller
marketplace.

They focus the adverts on the small business person interested
in selling to the consumer. This has been apparent now for the
past 4 years. Microsoft ads reflect the advantages of using
.net for example as a small business tool to help adjust
prices faster.  This ad (the broken wine bottles) was never
aimed at the consumer, but rather at the small business owner.
The actual consumer marketplace is really not worth
advertising towards.  Microsoft won that war.  Now they are
after the clients of IBM, Oracle, Accpac, SAP, and many others
who thought they were safe.....

I have not seen a consumer based ad since the XP rollout,
where it appears if you touch a Windows XP keyboard, you are
able to magically start to fly......

> > So are you saying that Microsoft actually would recommend
that a sales
> > clerk deliberately destroy the customer's wine bottle just
so they can rip
> > him off by charging an updated (presumably higher) price
for a new one?
> > This is one of the "benefits" of .NET?

It appears Microsoft assumes all business would act as the ad
suggests.  Market shortages make the price fluctuate.
Microsoft refects this style of business.  Not that there is
anything legally wrong with the market driven capitalist
market, it sometimes has a slightly distasteful appearance.
Microsoft in my mind has always skirted the law and is mostly
distasteful in almost everything it does.

However on the other hand, Microsoft is really only reflecting
the similar policy of the USA.  America always pushes hard in
the world to maintain its economic power.  Almost all US
foreign policy can be linked to greed, power, resources,
vengeance, and maintenance of power.

If America feels it is losing a market, they simply put duties
and taxes to make the local USA products unfairly competative
to better cheaper foreign products.  Very few times in the
history of the USA has anything been done regarding foreign
policy that has been remotely related to "freedom" and other
more airy fairy uphemisms.

As for advertising in North America.....   Nowhere in the
world has advertising been more effective that in the USA.
The population of the USA can very easily be made to do the
powers that be's bidding.  Americans as a whole are the
easiest to affect via propaganda.  CNN and the other US
networks are very effective at manipulating the average
American.

All this means is that Microsoft is only doing what has been
done in the USA administration for the past 200 years!  If you
want to chastize Microsoft, take a long hard look at accepted
business dealings of the USA administration regarding world
business tactics.

Its kinda hard to chastise Microsft in a heavy handed manner
when the USA administration go far beyond Microsoft's actions.