Are Microsoft Partners Spreading Open-Source Fear?

I'm not certain these actions are officially MS-Sanctioned. I think it's more along the lines of VARs and other MS partners trying to stir up FUD to get sales. Existing (working, stable) systems are a big threat to them, as they make their money by getting businesses to upgrade to MS's "latest and greatest"--whether or not the software they are pushing is really all that great to begin with or the upgrade is actually needed or not.

I'd call them fearmongerers, but you see the same technique used by salesmen all the time, regardless of the product.

Quoting:they make their money by getting businesses to upgrade to MS's "latest and greatest"

Oh how the word upgrade has become degraded.

Doublespeak at its finest!

My problem is that the author bases the premise of his article on a post by someone on Slashdot and a quote from the thread related to it. Yes he has comments from a couple of CEO's of small IT companies in California, but I wonder aloud if they were knew they were responding to some anonymous posts on Slashdot.

I am not refuting that Microsoft engages in these kinds of tactics, its the 'research' in this article I am extremely suspect of. First, I would not have used that Slashdot post for anything unless I could verify the identity of the poster and talk to them to ascertain its validity and use the authors name. Second, I would also get the name of the thread poster as well before using their thread post as a second reference.

Basing an article on a Slashdot post and thread response and then having two corporate officers make comments based on that, to put it lightly, is not quality journalism.

Scott, I have been in email contact with the author, and he does not see that he is spreading FUD at all.

an excerpt from my latest email to him [quote] The fud is, that you have laid the accusation out there, said it would be hard to prove, and then quoted a few people who could be counted on to deny the accusations even if they were true. You accomplished hearsay commentary after laying the charge, and then made a farcical attempt to disprove it. [/qoute]

That was 10 hours ago, and still no response.

Cool of you to get a hold of him, but my argument stands.

He should have done the necessary research to verify the information before publishing it. Otherwise it is heresy as you said to him.

P.S. Quoting anything on Slashdot is not a good idea in my book anyway. Anything off that site is suspect, at best.

I agree, Scott, it's pretty thin, and improbable. The original story was questionable, and the channelweb story is useless. So the reporter called a Microsoft partner and asked "Is this true?" wow, that's like deep investigation. Not.