Salah....Heyyy wait a minute <g>. There's my MICROSOFT BASHING ARTICLE
The one I did with TC DOYLE.
HEY NOVELL.....YOU LISTENING? I TOLD YOU TO MARK 4/15 down on your calendars. So it was a week late. Sooner than you'll get MOAB out though!
NOW HERE'S HOW YOU BASH MICROSOFT! SEND IT UP THE FOOD CHAIN HUH!
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FROM VAR BUSINESS:
April 15, 1997, Issue: 1306
Section: Business -- Head To Head
VARs In the Crossfire -- The search for truth in vendor
propaganda
By T.C. Doyle
The Heart of the Matter
"The misinformation and, in some cases, out-and-out lies that Microsoft
throws around causes us in the services business a great deal of stress.
Customers see that stuff and wonder why we recommended other
solutions."
Joe Antol
IT services consultant
and Microsoft Solution Provider
Woodbridge, N.J.
---
Microsoft's Response
"To be fair, I personally test everything we write about. When we do
overstate something, I'll change our materials. And when someone maligns
us, I'll challenge them."
Bob Kelly
Product marketing manager, Windows NT Server
Microsoft
Redmond, Wash.
---
So you finally persuaded a customer to buy your solution. You researched
literature, huddled with colleagues and even piloted the solution yourself.
Your customer is happy. Or was until he saw a White Paper on the
Internet that damns the solution you sold. Now he is howling, and you feel
like you've been tossed in jail over a marketing piece making spurious
claims.
Sound familiar? It does to Joe Antol. As an IT services consultant with
one of the world's largest solutions providers, he's been challenged scores
of times by customers who have been told that they might have made a
mistake going with the solution Antol's company recommended.
Though business propaganda has been around for years, many agree the
Internet has fueled its proliferation. Recently, for example, Netscape Inc.
attracted the ire of Lotus Development after Lotus officials noticed that
Netscape claimed on its home page that Lotus Domino did not support
AIX. Lotus says that's not so.
Though many companies make dubious claims, one stands out to Antol as
the worst offender: $8.7 billion Microsoft. He says Microsoft's claims
about the limits of Novell's NetWare networking software are often
misleading.
We asked Microsoft to comment on Antol's gripe about a new document.
It asserts Novell's new Workstation Manager software, which gives
NetWare users the ability to manage NT Workstation clients on the
network, has severe limitations. The paper says software from $2 billion
Novell cannot support NT Server, provide adequate security or provide a
cost-effective solution. Novell counters that the software can be used in
mixed environments running NetWare and NT Server, offers as much
security as NT Server and is actually free.
"The misinformation and, in some cases, out-and-out lies that Microsoft
throws around causes us in the services business a great deal of stress,"
says Antol. "Customers see that stuff and wonder why we recommended
other solutions."
To be fair, Microsoft is the victim of questionable claims as often as it is
the perpetrator. Oracle, for example, is going around with a study by Giga
Information Group that blasts an IDC report showing Microsoft SQL
Server in a positive light. That's right: There's now a study that dissects a
study. How's that for tit-for-tat?
Bob Kelly, a product marketing manager with Microsoft's Windows NT
Server team, says "I personally test everything we write about. When we
do overstate something, I'll change our materials. And when someone
maligns us, I'll challenge them." As for Novell, he takes issue with their
security claims. He says Novell's software has not achieved any higher
security approval than Microsoft's software.
"This competitive stuff has been going on for a long time," says Kelly. "If
the Internet's changed anything, it's changed the immediacy of the flow of
information. That makes things seem worse, though I'm not so sure they
are."
What To Expect
Is Microsoft the ultimate villain that Antol and others claim? Maybe. But,
Novell itself has stretched the truth. Where are the NetWare 3.x upgrades
it discussed previously? Clearly, Microsoft isn't the only practitioner of the
weird art of propaganda. Truth-stretching is as old as marketing itself.
Promises to "play fair" are worthless in a market where billions of dollars
are up for grabs. Without Marquess of Queensberry rules and traditions,
vendors are going to push limits and rely on partners to set records
straight. VARs, therefore, should be proactive and inform customers
anytime they see something amiss.
---
If you have a conflict you'd like us to resolve, send it to business editor
Deidra-Ann Parrish at dparrish@cmp.com.
Copyright r 1997 CMP Media Inc.
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THAT'S WHAT I MEAN BY GUTS! AND NOT GUTLESS!
WHY CAN'T YOU GUYS SAY THIS STUFF!
Joe... |
