Microsoft’s cynical response to laptop scandal
Posted on December 31st, 2006 by John Pospisil
Response to my post about the Microsoft-AMD Acer laptop scandal has underscored the disconnect between how bloggers are perceived and what they actually are. Microsoft’s recent comments about the scandal also demonstrate just how cynical the company is when dealing with bloggers
The scandal first arose when Microsoft sent some laptops loaded with Vista to 90 top bloggers as part of a public relations campaign. I was one of the first commentators to point out that the company had crossed the line with this initiative, and that these gifts were actually more like bribes. For my troubles I’ve been called jealous, a fool, and a racist.
Microsoft has since said that the program was meant to be an evaluation program, not a bribe, according to a report on news.com.au.
Not that I would accept anything from the evil empire, but a new laptop running Gentoo Linux would be rather nice. ;-P
*UPDATE*
There is an update to this post as well, giving more information on this.
Read it Here