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- SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -27/+254Other company to bloggers: Here's some PCs for review. Return them when you're done with them.
Digg: [doesn't notice]
Microsoft to bloggers: Here's some PCs for review. Return them when you're done with them.
Digg: [first[ EVIL MICRO$OFT BRIBING BLOGGERS WITH FREE LAPTOPS!!!
[later] EVIL MICROSOFT SNATCHES LAPTOPS BACK OFF POOR BLOGGERS!!!!11!!
And, no doubt, if it Apple did it,
Apple to bloggers: Here's some PCs for review. Return them when you're done with them.
Digg: [first] Bounteous Gods at Apple generously acknowledge grateful and loyal bloggers!
[later] Apple reaffirms its utter integrity after slanderous FUD campaign casts doubt on generous gifts!
Come on, people, get a sense of perspective... - monergism, on 10/12/2007, -13/+108Not a big suprise.
Consider the facts:
1. MS "gives" away laptops w/ Vista to bloggers.
2. Bloggers say they are being bribed.
3. MS gets backlash about bribing.
4. MS requests them back, so not to be seen as bribing.
5. Bloggers complain again, saying laptops are being taken back.
MANY hardware/software vendors send their products to be demoed, and, hopefully, to get a positive review.
Sadly Microsoft can't win. They did something very nice. They didn't bribe anyone. They gave away some great hardware (free) running Vista (free) to get a review (for free). They in turn get a PR nightmare. - arunforce, on 10/12/2007, -18/+97It's innaccurate: "I’m going to ask that you either give the pc away or send it back when you no longer need it for product reviews."
Please stop the much loved Microsoft bashing, and just give us the facts.
It seems like they want you not to have it as a bribe/gift, just for reviewing. Nothing wrong with that, but they should of got their facts straight before they sent you the laptop, of course they would never know what happened to it, if you indeed "gave it away". =) - 0siris, on 10/12/2007, -10/+65Its to test vista. Vista doesnt run on air you know... although it would be a neat trick.
- zweben, on 10/12/2007, -10/+51No strings attached. Enjoy.
Haha! Just kidding! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31@ SEM
I enjoyed that :) - Pimpalicious316, on 10/12/2007, -0/+26can they give them away to each other?
- SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -3/+29Aristotle: read the original story. Microsoft sent them out jointly with AMD in order to showcase the way the 64 bit version of Vista works with the new 64 bit dual-core AMD processors. Clearly, they would not have been able to do this by sending out boxed copies of Vista. Equally clearly, an AMD processor can't be showcased on its own without supporting hardware any more than a Windows CD can.
Aristotle: the article you linked to doesn't mention the latops, and the event was not linked with the sending out of the laptops. Are you on drugs? - Audobahn, on 10/12/2007, -8/+32Why exactly is this a big deal? MS gives out its product to some people for free... Since when do they have to be 'fair' and give everyone a laptop?
- netwookiee, on 10/12/2007, -14/+32So just give it to your dog or your imaginary friend. At least then you could say you gave it away.
- Traedortious, on 10/12/2007, -3/+21I'm not a MS fanboy or anything, but I wouldn't have sent a laptop to that bitch anyway. In fact I hope I never run into his blog ever again. Bloggers are damn lucky they even get any attention from corporations, especially the bloggers who whine about these things. He should just give it to his girl friend or something, but there probably isn't a girl that can stand him enough to want to be with him. I honestly just wonder if this is the only type of ***** that some bloggers can consider blog worthy.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21If this were apple you'd all be going "Oh well, it was nice for them to even send them out for a review!11"
- debt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14"Has even Tony Hawk ever done a total 180 so quickly?"
Wow, that's awful. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18MS did say that these laptops were "review" units. Perhaps this is just the blogosphere's own ignorance about what certain terms mean. When I saw the first post on the homepage I interpreted the review as the blogger reviews the unit and then send it back but the blogger claimed that the laptop belonged to him. I'm on the side of MS on this one.
- dggeek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14aristotle:
I think you need a reality check. People are not digging you down because they are fanboys. They are digging you down because you are posting like an ass. - hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16>Microsoft to bloggers: Here's some PCs for review. Return them when you're done with them.
According to the article, that's not what the first letter said:
The original email read" "you are welcome to send the machine back to us after you are done playing with it, or you can give it away to your community, or you can hold onto it for as long as you’d like."
See that "you can hold onto it for as long as you’d like" part? - IronKurton, on 10/12/2007, -7/+20Goddamn, I am so sick of these whiny, fanboish blogs making it to the front page of digg. Please, think of the children -- would you want them to whine on a blog?
For the record, I stopped reading at "The computer itself doesn't retail for $2k plus for nothing - it's fast. Windows is so annoying and (to me, a Mac user) so counter-intuitive, that I'd never buy a Windows machine."
And I would have stopped reading if it said the exact opposite, too. This posting showcases the blog writer's ignorance and arrogance, and as such cannot be taken seriously.
Go ahead, digg me down, I don't care. I'm sick of this fanboism. Can we now just please stick to the facts? Thanks. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14@ epistemological,
You must've not done any PR work for any companies that deal with anything gaming.. because they all give stuff away. Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, THQ and nearly every company which has a PR department gives tons of stuff away free. A friend of mine runs a medium sized game site, it is ridiculous how many free games he receives each month to review and no, they never ask for it to be sent back. Go ***** on some other site. - SEMW, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13>SEMW, I read from even prominent windows fanboys like Long Zheng that these were sent with the message "No Strings attached, enjoy".
> Now they have turned around and said they were review units and that they should either give them back or give them away. If they were
> review units, why would they give the option to give them away and why did they not mention any of this when they were originally sent out?
...Umm, your last three posts were asking why Microsoft were sending out laptops rather than Vista CDs, considering that they didn't make the laptops. That was the point I answered. Is there some particular reason why you're now answering a completely seperate point?
> said that event triggered MSFT into sending laptops to people like the guy in the linked blog. He is a mac
> user. Why would they be sending a review unit to a mac blogger?
...The event you linked to didn't mention the guy in TFA as one of those invited. As far as I can make out, he *wasn't* invited. The link has no relevence. And in answer to your last question, might I hazard an answer of... To review it? Clearly, it was a mistake of Microsoft to do this since the blogger in question appears to be an idiot, but that doesn't change the intention. - consonance, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Welcome to the new Slashdot, just like the old Slashdot.
- danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12To me it just shows how much animosity and hatred there is towards Microsoft out there. No matter what they do people are going to spin it for the worst. I can't say I blame them I'm frustrated enough with everything Microsoft that I would too.
- teknopagan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11I'm thinking the main reason MS sent out laptops rather than boxed Vista installation media, is that it's a hell of a lot harder to copy and share an installed OS than it would be to post a torrent of a DVD iso.
- Arkonnan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Judging by the tone of this article, his bias seems pretty clear. Why would Microsoft trust him to write an objective review to begin with?
I guess journalism standards really have gone down the ***** in the last few years. - pamon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8who the hell is marshall kirkpatrick and why is MS sending him a laptop to review vista anyways?
is he a credited media reviewer? never heard of him - Triffid, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11"Windows is so annoying and (to me, a Mac user) so counter-intuitive, that I'd never buy a Windows machine. "
Well, with comments like that its a wonder why they sent him a laptop in the first place... his fan-boy attitude toward Macs sure doesn't give Vista much of a chance. - Asvetic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Man, I was thinking the same thing. This guy bitches like a spoiled brat.
I might be a bit biased because I own an Acer Ferrari. I will say, that even after 2 years it's still kicking (I'll have to upgrade the RAM soon), but other than that it's a well made, feature rich machine. And to counter, I'm no stranger to Mac's either, I love 'em. I could easily equate the quality of a Macbook to my Acer and find little differences in performance and features. They're both solid machines. I guess I'm in the minority of being a fanboy of both! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9In many of the blogs who received the laptops they do acknowledge that these laptops are for review and should be returned. Check out these posts:
http://www.mstechtoday.com/2006/12/27/windows-vista-the-acer-ferrari-5000-first-thoughts/
http://laughingsquid.com/microsoft-sent-a-free-laptop-with-windows-vista/
http://www.crunchnotes.com/?p=331
On the last link, MS clearly says before even sending the laptops that these are review units. Clearly some of the bloggers are in the wrong on this one. - Toast1185, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Am I the only one that thinks this author sounds like a brat?
- Traedortious, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9If having two linux boxes makes you an MS fanboy, than yes, I guess I am a MS fanboy...
- Desolite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6what a dumb article. and horrible writing to boot.
lame. - unnamedjoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I"m sorry but if Apple would have done this, they would have been praised and put up on their pedestal on how great they are. Microsoft should be allowed to do this just because they can. Who says they can't the person has the choice to accept it and also has the choice on what they say.
- OpCzar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Where's the original message when they got the laptop? I want to read if the laptop was really given away or not.
- bias, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Please, show us some evidence that there are "100 paid M$ ballsuckers ".
- iwankalot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Oh, poor little bloggers dont get to keep their free toys. Who gives a flying *****.
- sirstaunch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I'd give it away to some one who still uses DOS
- Triffid, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@deadbaby
I consider it fan-boy because he is making his decision before he even looks at the new Windows OS. He makes a blanket statement that he will buy Mac over Windows regardless of version. Now... if he had taken a serious look at Vista and compared it side by side with the latest version of Mac OS, maybe even with some examples as to why Windows is "counter-intuitive" where as Mac OS is intuitive... then that wouldn't be fan-boy ;) - epistemological, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7@TSK06, I got my BS in Advertising and PR focusing on gov't and entertainment PR. I am sorry you all feel I am attacking MS, as that is not my intention at all. I am sure a lot of companies give out free gifts to people to review and that does not make it ethical. The simple fact is just because other people do it, does not make it right.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8Im a comp. analyst, i run Unix, Linux, Windows. Never used a mac. a friend just bought a mac. i was hoping to see this 'ease of use' when he asked me to do the network setup.
I didnt find it intuitive at all. No context menu (right click) makes 'object oriented' GUI pointless. You cannot easily identify what is running and what is not. only seeing the single menu bar at the top of the screen makes productivity difficult if trying to use more-than-one app at the same time.
I just did not see it. found it very constraining and not a little frustrating. - marshallk, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I agree - that's why I wrote: "Ok, so obviously I'm being a bit snotty here and am in a position of ridiculous privilege to get one of these things for free - I just don't think it's anything to get your knickers in a twist about given the state of the world. The PR backpedal here is just silly."
- digdug135, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3From http://www.crunchnotes.com/?p=331 : "Also, you are welcome to send the machine back to us after you are done playing with it, or you can give it away to your community, or you can hold onto it for as long as you’d like."
"As long as you'd like" sounds like they can keep it forever if they'd like to. - aristotle0dude, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Yeah and I quote from the last like:
"Also, you are welcome to send the machine back to us after you are done playing with it, or you can give it away to your community, or you can hold onto it for as long as you’d like."
As long as you like sounds like they are saying you can keep it. Giving it away also sounds contradictory to it being a "review" machine. But again, I have to ask you, why did the need to send out a laptop if they were only soliciting reviews of Vista and why did they send them out to bloggers that are known to be mac users? - monergism, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8@epistemological
If MS asked for them back, then it is ethical. If they didn't, well, then according to you it's unethical. So you agree that MS is 'good' for asking them back? - SirBotchness, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Wow he's like a 30 yr old crybaby. He's going places with his smug attitude and inability to be open-minded. I bet he has pictures of himself being all angry about it on his myspace page. Fairy.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5hyackmyballs...that is the most delusional postr ever. Yeah...Microsofot is going to pay even ONE person, let alone 100, to be on Digg!. I mean, even you can't believe your own *****. ESPECIALLY on Digg where any anti-MS story gets 2000 diggs and any anti-Apple story gets buried no matter HOW factual it is.
Something tells me that hackmyballs will start submitting RDM stories soon. Only Daniel is that delusional. - lynxpardinus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What I haven't seen anywhere is if the units where sent unasked. In the old days if you were going to review hardware/software you contacted the company and they would send you a review unit after some type of contract/agreement was in place. If you receive a unit that you didn't ask for and you don't have a previous relationship with MS as a reviewer the unit is a gift. The same law that applies to unordered items (the old-age scam where they sent you some silly order like business cards w/o you ordering them along with an outrageous invoice) applies to this I would think: you didn't ask for it, there is no previous relationship between the parties then it is a gift: ignore the invoice (demand for review in this case) and keep it.
You can't send something w/o having reach a mutual agreement as to the conditions. What they are doing is trying to "force" bloggers into writing reviews for a product they weren't even thinking on reviewing to begin with. Otherwise they would have called BEFOREHAND and say something like this: "We have some laptops that we are sending to people that are going to review Vista, are you interested in us sending you one of this units? Yes? Ok, I'll send you this little contract that specifies that you will receive the unit for review purposes only and then you will return it to us, once you sign it and send it back to us we will send you the laptop, thank you and have a great day"
So if you didn't ask for a laptop and didn't sign anything that specifies the conditions they are talking about, keep the laptop and ignore them. - sl4x0r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is a ridiculously misleading title. MS sends out laptops to bloggers so they can check out Vista (and blog about it if they choose), they get accused of "bribery", so they ask the bloggers to give the laptop away to a reader or something. I'm by no means an MS fan, but the backlash for what was a rarely kind move by what is surely a relatively small division of MS is just sad and unjustified in this case.
- Betacamman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've no problem with them backtracking and saying it's a review unit that should be returned...they're correcting an ethical error.
But the whole business about "or give them away" is bothersome. It's like they don't _really_ understand what they did wrong, so they're just guessing about a solution. - virtualball, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It was a very nice thing to do, of course it was. But they make Software, not hardware, they went the extra mile knowing that they were giving out the best of the best, since it isn't theres, that could be considered a bribe. Like if I am an interior company and I sent you a Mercedes Benz with my interior in it to "test". I didn't need to give you the Benz, but you are much more likely to say positive things about the interior because you just got a free Benz. Not to mention most people don't have top 'o the line computers, most have HP's and Dell's (type of computer) so if they say that Vista goes FAST and not one hiccup, that is due to the machine, not the OS.
- CaptainHarlock, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3If he doesn't like Vista he could have done a review on how easy/difficult it is to remove Vista and install another operating system (Linux, BSD, etc.).
Don't waste perfectly good hardware. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3aristotle0dude and/or hackmyballs
I see Daniel Eran has a new digg username.
Welcome back! -
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