The Media and Tech Industry's Double Standard Towards Microsoft

kerryprsp

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I've wanted to talk about this for awhile and Google's recent actions have pushed me to make this thread. It seems as if the media and the entire tech industry have it in for Microsoft. Most "tech" sites that I visit seem to jump at the chance to bash Microsoft to the point where I sometimes feel like a leper for liking and using Microsoft products and services. It's actually considered "cool" to baselessly bash Microsoft and it annoys me. Yes, Microsoft has done some underhanded things but so has Apple and Google yet Microsoft is treated like a villain while the media underreports and downright downplays many of the things that Apple and Google do. I'm not a Microsoft fan boy but I think it's about time for this to be addressed and for the media and tech industry to start reporting with impartiality in mind. Now that I've got that off my chest, what do you guys think?
 

Daniel Ratcliffe

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Should happen, never will. Rumours flying around here are that Apple/Google are paying the bloggers to underhand and dismiss MS as the worst thing ever. If that is the case, then that solidifies that it will never stop.
 

brmiller1976

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Very true. One of the more amusing examples of this was pointing out how PC sales declined, and this shows that Microsoft's being destroyed by the Mac and iPhone in a "post-PC era."

I invited the blogger in question -- on a well-known tech site -- to explain how Apple's 6% PC sales decline (in the same period) and decline in global market share for smartphones to under 12% (from a high of 30%) isn't evidence of a "post-Apple era." Tongue in cheek, of course.

Not only did he not respond to my two sentence comment, but the comment was deleted and my account was banned, without explanation. I imagine it's because I'd laid bare how utterly fact-free the argument in the article truly was, and the guy didn't want to have to apologize, backtrack, or muddle his way through a discussion about it.

Microsoft isn't the only company who gets this treatment -- RIM receives it as well. You could feel the seething rage at RIM's recent quarter, which was supposed to be a disaster but was actually rather good. "RIM is dead, damn it! I wrote so!" And ironically enough, Apple got the same treatment in the mid to late 1990s as well. If you want a really funny experience, check out what Dvorak or some of the other Apple cheerleaders in the tech press today were writing about the iBook, iPod and other devices in the late 1990s and early 2000s versus their fawning over the latest MacBook speed bump today.

Too many "journalists" want to make the news rather than report it. They want to be the kingmakers in the in-crowd. They want to be the "deciders." Some, like the former TechCrunch crew, even want to invest in companies they cover positively, to make money for themselves.

As always, it's up to the reader to have the facts and decide for himself.
 

sashlon

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I think there's some truth to this.

People tend to live in the past in terms of how they perceive the tech industry. The Apple of today is not the Apple of a decade ago, the Google of today is not the Google of a decade ago and the Microsoft of today is not the Microsoft of a decade ago.
 

kerryprsp

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Very true. One of the more amusing examples of this was pointing out how PC sales declined, and this shows that Microsoft's being destroyed by the Mac and iPhone in a "post-PC era."

I invited the blogger in question -- on a well-known tech site -- to explain how Apple's 6% PC sales decline (in the same period) and decline in global market share for smartphones to under 12% (from a high of 30%) isn't evidence of a "post-Apple era." Tongue in cheek, of course.

Not only did he not respond to my two sentence comment, but the comment was deleted and my account was banned, without explanation. I imagine it's because I'd laid bare how utterly fact-free the argument in the article truly was, and the guy didn't want to have to apologize, backtrack, or muddle his way through a discussion about it.

Microsoft isn't the only company who gets this treatment -- RIM receives it as well. You could feel the seething rage at RIM's recent quarter, which was supposed to be a disaster but was actually rather good. "RIM is dead, damn it! I wrote so!" And ironically enough, Apple got the same treatment in the mid to late 1990s as well. If you want a really funny experience, check out what Dvorak or some of the other Apple cheerleaders in the tech press today were writing about the iBook, iPod and other devices in the late 1990s and early 2000s versus their fawning over the latest MacBook speed bump today.

Too many "journalists" want to make the news rather than report it. They want to be the kingmakers in the in-crowd. They want to be the "deciders." Some, like the former TechCrunch crew, even want to invest in companies they cover positively, to make money for themselves.

As always, it's up to the reader to have the facts and decide for himself.
I wholeheartedly agree. It's important to have the facts and decide for yourself because most "journalist" and "analyst" only care about their own agendas.
 

kerryprsp

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AngryNil

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What saddens me most is the communities built around these tech sites, consisting of ordinary-ish people who might go on to offer "advice" to their friends.

Just take a look at Google circlejerking that took place on Ars Technica, a fantastic publication, when the Maps story was posted. If a normal person were to read through those comments or speak to one of those bandwagoners, they might actually get the impression that Microsoft or IE was somehow at fault (or worse, building a Webkit-only web is noble and pro-consumer). I guess I know why Ars puts comments on a separate page than the article.
 

web99

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Very true. One of the more amusing examples of this was pointing out how PC sales declined, and this shows that Microsoft's being destroyed by the Mac and iPhone in a "post-PC era."

I invited the blogger in question -- on a well-known tech site -- to explain how Apple's 6% PC sales decline (in the same period) and decline in global market share for smartphones to under 12% (from a high of 30%) isn't evidence of a "post-Apple era." Tongue in cheek, of course.

Not only did he not respond to my two sentence comment, but the comment was deleted and my account was banned, without explanation. I imagine it's because I'd laid bare how utterly fact-free the argument in the article truly was, and the guy didn't want to have to apologize, backtrack, or muddle his way through a discussion about it.

Microsoft isn't the only company who gets this treatment -- RIM receives it as well. You could feel the seething rage at RIM's recent quarter, which was supposed to be a disaster but was actually rather good. "RIM is dead, damn it! I wrote so!" And ironically enough, Apple got the same treatment in the mid to late 1990s as well. If you want a really funny experience, check out what Dvorak or some of the other Apple cheerleaders in the tech press today were writing about the iBook, iPod and other devices in the late 1990s and early 2000s versus their fawning over the latest MacBook speed bump today.

Too many "journalists" want to make the news rather than report it. They want to be the kingmakers in the in-crowd. They want to be the "deciders." Some, like the former TechCrunch crew, even want to invest in companies they cover positively, to make money for themselves.

As always, it's up to the reader to have the facts and decide for himself.
I agree with those points and I do see a lack of objectivity in some of the tech media articles. Instead of just reporting the facts you see them being overly negative or positive depending on their personal likes and dislikes.
 

kerryprsp

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What saddens me most is the communities built around these tech sites, consisting of ordinary-ish people who might go on to offer "advice" to their friends.

Just take a look at Google circlejerking that took place on Ars Technica, a fantastic publication, when the Maps story was posted. If a normal person were to read through those comments or speak to one of those bandwagoners, they might actually get the impression that Microsoft or IE was somehow at fault (or worse, building a Webkit-only web is noble and pro-consumer). I guess I know why Ars puts comments on a separate page than the article.

I came across a tech site that actually blamed Microsoft and IE for the Google Maps fiasco.
 

brmiller1976

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To be fair, if you're a Microsoft user, this is fairly new because 10 years ago, it was the web sites all pushing Microsoft in the same way and treating Apple as the red-headed stepchild.

Google has ALWAYS been treated with white gloves. You'd think they'd invented the cure for cancer and banished world hunger, rather than operating the world's largest spyware advertising operation.
 

crystal_planet

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This is a great take-down of the tech blogger community in the local weekly. I know some of these people, and the descriptions he writes of them (as well as accounts of how damn unethical the whole thing is) are both hilarious and accurate.

Are People Finally Getting Bored with the Tech-Blog Circle Jerk? - San Francisco - News - The Snitch

Yeah, I read that article a while back and I was especially happy he called out Siegler specifically. It used to be that even if there was a bias, the article would be written pretty neutrally - that is without any melodrama or over the top gushing (or bashing) we are so used to today.

It feels like I'm reading "News of the World" at times. I keep expecting to see a bat boy reference in the middle of a phone review.
 

crystal_planet

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To be fair, if you're a Microsoft user, this is fairly new because 10 years ago, it was the web sites all pushing Microsoft in the same way and treating Apple as the red-headed stepchild.

Google has ALWAYS been treated with white gloves. You'd think they'd invented the cure for cancer and banished world hunger, rather than operating the world's largest spyware advertising operation.

That's because they are still seen as the plucky little upstart living by their own rules.
 

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