Microsoft is looking for an insult duel with Linux?

Just something that I thought was funny in the Windows Vs Linux debate.

Microsoft's training materials teach Best Buy employees how to trash Linux

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Comments

fleck

LOL, I thought Linux users started that insult duel years ago

But yeah definitely not a surprise. I wouldn't put such lowness beyond Microsoft.

tiersten

Nothing surprising about it and it isn't specific to Microsoft either. This is just marketing and everybody does it. Make your product look better than the competitors. At the end of the day, they're a business who want to sell their products.

skrpune

tiersten wrote: »

Nothing surprising about it and it isn't specific to Microsoft either.

All I'll say is: anyone seen a Mac commercial lately?

JBrown

skrpune wrote: »

All I'll say is: anyone seen a Mac commercial lately?

I was a guest on a wedding some time ago, bunch of us were waiting outside while the bride and groom were taking pics inside the photo studio.
So imagine dozen of guys standing in front of the studio, and among them a 24 year old dude with a suite from Versace, Cartier watch, Prada's men shoes, eyebrows are done and botox injected all over his forehead.
This guy all of a sudden changes the topic from global warming (we had some vodka before hand )

to Mac vs PC

and starts bashing Windows ... And of course stupid me, the only techie person among the rest ( real estate and stock brokers), expecting the guy to be more or less knowledgeable with Mac ask the question "So why is Mac better than the PC ?" and his anwser to it .... "well because its not a PC". hmm Ok, so " What is wrong with PC/ Windows then?" and his answer ... " What you have not seen the commercial with good looking skinny guy on it, where he tells how bad PC is ?"
Session is closed.
And I thought an average stock broker is much smarter than that.

RobertKaucher

As an ex-Geek Squad agent I can tell you I have seen stuff like this from so many vendors it's not funny. This is only worth comment because it's from Microsoft.

The thing is though, these statements are accurate concerning the largest segment of those who shop at Best Buy. Most gamers who would have the technical ability to properly install and configure Linux/WINE would probably not be buying their PC as a prefab from Best Buy. Secondly the agents there would not have the technical skill to install and configure it either. The "Precinct" I worked at was probably one of the most technically adept in our state. We had part timers who were professional developers, our full timers were almost all A+/Net+ or some combo of MCP. But I was probably the most Linux savvy and I'm not that good to where I would want to support a 14 year old kid who does not have the technical ability to explain what is wrong to his mother who does not have the technical ability to even explain what was explained to her. I would be told "You sold me this and it doesn't work. This sucks, it's your fault." And then I would fire it up and it would work fine for me.

So, IMHO, just because this may seem inaccurate from our perspective does not mean it is innaccurate from the perspective of Best Buy's customer base.

Paul Boz

You don't think every other vendor on earth does this? Watch TV for aproximately two seconds to see this in action. "Don't buy X car, buy ours for reasons A, B, and C."

Also, I want to put that mac dude from the Windows bashing commercials into a death lock.

Solaris_UNIX

RobertKaucher wrote: »

So, IMHO, just because this may seem inaccurate from our perspective does not mean it is innaccurate from the perspective of Best Buy's customer base.

I agree with your sentiment in that I think most people who run more technically involved operating systems like Gentoo, OpenBSD, Slackware Linux, etc. don't frequently shop for their computers at Best Buy. Most of the "serious" BSD and Linux users I know build their own desktop computers from scratch out of custom parts and sometimes even compile their own custom O.S. kernel to run on top of it.

I think Linux and BSD culture is in some ways very similar to the old "hot rod" car culture from the 1950's through the 1970's where people would spend hours upon hours in their garage customizing and tinkering with their automobiles as a hobby. The hot rod enthusiast's automobile needs might be very different from Grandma's automobile needs where I am assuming that Grandma just wants the car to start up and run when she turns the key in the ignition. Grandma probably wouldn't want to spend all day on Saturday and Sunday taking the car apart and putting it back together unless she was some kind of a classic car or hot rod enthusiast!

Unfortunately, laptops, are not as easy to customize as desktops, but if you want a Linux Laptop with Ubuntu already installed on it, you can order one direct from Dell here:

Ubuntu on Dell | Ubuntu

UNIX laptops have actually been around for a long time too (i.e. since the old Sparcbooks of yore). If you make your living working as a programmer for Mozilla and you absolutely have to have OpenSolaris on your laptop so that you can use dtrace to search for memory leaks in the latest builds of Firefox, you can get a Toshiba Laptop with Solaris pre-installed and pre-configured on it here:

Toshiba OpenSolaris Laptops

Now what I've always been looking for is a company that sells laptops that are customized so that everything works with FreeBSD and OpenBSD pre-installed out of the box. Anybody seen a company anywhere that does that?

networker050184

Paul Boz wrote: »

Also, I want to put that mac dude from the Windows bashing commercials into a death lock.

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

RobertKaucher

networker050184 wrote: »

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Sorry guys. You had better be able to run fast, because I will get there first!

tiersten

Paul Boz wrote: »

Also, I want to put that mac dude from the Windows bashing commercials into a death lock.

Can you go find the "Dell Dude" as well?

RTmarc

tiersten wrote: »

Can you go find the "Dell Dude" as well?

I think he's still in jail for drugs.