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    Home Latest News

      Microsoft Ad Drive Targets Linux

      By
      Peter Galli
      -
      January 12, 2004
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        In the latest sign that its worried about Linux, Microsoft Corp. last week launched a campaign designed to give customers information about the advantages of using Windows over its open-source competitor.

        Get the Facts is a print and online advertising campaign that will target leading IT publications and run for six months, said Microsoft officials, declining to say what the company expects to spend on the campaign.

        The campaign is the latest attempt by the Redmond, Wash., software company to counter the success of Linux and is in line with the strategy embraced by the companys open-source and Linux strategist, Martin Taylor, who took over the role in July. At the time he was appointed to replace Peter Houston, Taylor said he would make it his personal mission to publicize studies that showed Microsoft software beating open-source alternatives on return on investment.

        Officials said that customers had told Microsoft they wanted research and information to help make value-based IT decisions. Over the past year, software cost and value has been a common issue raised by IT customers.

        The ads will drive customers to a new Web site, www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ facts, to find information on what customers and analysts are saying about Windows versus Linux, officials said.

        One prominent statement on the site proclaims that “leading companies and third-party analysts confirm it: Windows [Server System] has a lower total cost of ownership and outperforms Linux.” Similar statements have been challenged by the Linux and open-source community and are certain to stir more controversy.

        Taylors plan to supply customers with “objective” third-party research and facts —much of which is paid for or sponsored by Microsoft—also has not been that well received.

        In fact, after Forrester Research Inc.s Giga Information Group unit published in September a study paid for by Microsoft that found the company offered a cost advantage over Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition/Linux as a development platform for certain portal applications, the research company said it would not publicize similar studies in the future.

        Microsoft has also been losing high-profile customers to Linux, many of them governments and governmental agencies and departments. Last month, the Israeli government said it will encourage the development of lower-priced alternatives to Microsoft software in an effort to help expand computer use by the public.

        The governments of Great Britain, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, China, South Africa and Russia are also taking the measure of open-source alternatives to Microsoft, while federal agencies in Germany, France and China are already employing or are considering open-source alternatives.

        Peter Galli
        Peter Galli has been a financial/technology reporter for 12 years at leading publications in South Africa, the UK and the US. He has been Investment Editor of South Africa's Business Day Newspaper, the sister publication of the Financial Times of London.He was also Group Financial Communications Manager for First National Bank, the second largest banking group in South Africa before moving on to become Executive News Editor of Business Report, the largest daily financial newspaper in South Africa, owned by the global Independent Newspapers group.He was responsible for a national reporting team of 20 based in four bureaus. He also edited and contributed to its weekly technology page, and launched a financial and technology radio service supplying daily news bulletins to the national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, which were then distributed to some 50 radio stations across the country.He was then transferred to San Francisco as Business Report's U.S. Correspondent to cover Silicon Valley, trade and finance between the US, Europe and emerging markets like South Africa. After serving that role for more than two years, he joined eWeek as a Senior Editor, covering software platforms in August 2000.He has comprehensively covered Microsoft and its Windows and .Net platforms, as well as the many legal challenges it has faced. He has also focused on Sun Microsystems and its Solaris operating environment, Java and Unix offerings. He covers developments in the open source community, particularly around the Linux kernel and the effects it will have on the enterprise.He has written extensively about new products for the Linux and Unix platforms, the development of open standards and critically looked at the potential Linux has to offer an alternative operating system and platform to Windows, .Net and Unix-based solutions like Solaris.His interviews with senior industry executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Linus Torvalds, the original developer of the Linux operating system, Sun CEO Scot McNealy, and Bill Zeitler, a senior vice president at IBM.For numerous examples of his writing you can search under his name at the eWEEK Website at www.eweek.com.

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