Microsoft India's [bogus] ad campaign against Linux

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh () frodo hserus net>
Date: June 18, 2004 11:10:28 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Microsoft India's [bogus] ad campaign against Linux

this is from http://www.cxotoday.com

Microsoft Wages Media War Against Linux
By Hinesh Jethwani
Mumbai, June 18, 2004

Pop quiz: How do you stop David from rising against Goliath? Well going  
by
the Book, simply deny the fact that David can do any harm at all.  
Microsoft
tried that, but it didnt work. So they decided to take it to the next  
level:
Intimidation wasnt an option, as Linux vendors are way too confident of
their products to be bullied by the Redmond Army.

After years of denial, the software Goliath has finally reconciled to  
the
fact that David is a face to reckon with, and something needs to be done
before the situation gains biblical proportions. The battle lines are  
drawn,
and in this no holds barred match, anything goes. In a move that may  
have
stretched advertising ethics a bit, Microsoft has taken the good ol  
media
bashing way to prove its point.


Starting with a release of some anti-Linux case studies, the company has
now embarked upon its latest plan of action against Linux--a worldwide  
Get
Your Facts Right campaign (PPT - 1.0MB), through which it aims to  
expose the
inherent dangers of going the Open Source way. [PPT link =
http://images.cxotoday.com/cxoimages/storyimages/ 
Get_Your_Facts_Right.zip
--srs]

Handpicked from its stack of archived case studies are three Indian
enterprises, all having one thing in common: They tried Linux, didnt  
like
it, and moved to Microsoft i.e. exactly the three musketeers that  
Microsoft
India was looking for to take its anti-Linux campaign forward.

Next step: Microsoft India floods the media with highly noticable ads,
warning CIOs to watch their step with Linux, or else repent and learn  
the
hard way.

Advertisement 1: The support debate

CIO in question: Hitendra Patil, whom the advertisement claims is
operational head of Central Depository Services (India) Ltd. (CDSL).

Quote: With Linux there was nobody offering us support. If there was a
problem we had to do our own R&D to find out what was wrong--this had  
cost
implications for us, as well as for our clients.

Fact: Hitendra Patil quit CDSL in February this year.

CXOtoday questioned Pramod Deshpande, VP-IT, CDSL, about the quote and  
his
companys stance on the issue.

Deshpande replied, The quote attributed to Patil is dated, and it holds  
true
only for MS Exchange Server. Every experience has a time limitation. It  
is
not a universal truth that he has spoken, and it is obviously subject to
change. It doesnt imply that Linux is unusable. We had opted for a Linux
Sendmail solution that created support problems as soon as we began to
expand our facility. Hence, we decided to switch over to Exchange.  
Period.

So does the advertisement prove that CDSL is never going to use Linux  
again?
Deshpande countered, I am not married to Microsoft. In fact, I am trying
to reduce the dependence of our IT infrastructure on Microsoft wherever
possible. We have just conducted a test run on a couple of non-critical
machines by using OpenOffice, which has so far been successful. The  
Sendmail
experience was just one instance, and if tomorrow good support is  
available,
why shouldnt I opt for Linux?

However, the front-end at CDSL consists of applications designed on VB  
and .NET, and moving the platform to Linux would be akin to sending  
most critical business functions to the orphanage.

Revealing his candid opinion about Microsoft, Deshpande said, The  
Software
Assurance program offered by Microsoft is something similar to a book
yourself in advance strategy, which can get taxing in trying times.  
Changes
and newer versions are good, but they may not be relevant to our set-up
always. Plus, there is always the issue of keeping at least 25 advance
licenses at hand, as you never know when the need for installing  
additional
machines may crop up.

So what words of wisdom does Deshpande have for CIOs opting for Linux?
As a technology head, I am supposed to run the show smoothly, and vendor
management is the key. Tomorrow, if I have a good experience with  
Linux, I
wouldnt mind campaigning for their ads as well. Why should I displease  
one
and please the other by commenting on such issues? he reasoned.

Even as this article is lined up for upload, CDSL is in the process of
conducting a meeting with Novell India for discussing the possible use  
of
alternate technologies like Linux.

Advertisement 2: The never ending TCO debate

CIO in question: Ramesh Sanka, whom the advertisement claims is CIO,  
Moser
Baer India.

Quote: The cost of maintaining a Linux system is much more than a  
Windows
based system over the long term.

Fact: Ramesh Sanka quit Moser Baer India last month.

CXOtoday tried to investigate Moser Baers stance on Linux, but
unfortunately, the person in question--the IT Head of the company, Muthu
Kumar, was unavailable for comment.

Advertisement 3: The low TCO argument again

CIO in question: The last man standing, Mani Mulki, the CIO of Godrej
Industries.

Quote: Today with Windows, I pay one-sixth the amount for support than  
I did
when we were using the Linux Sendmail solution.

CXOtoday questioned Mani Mulki about the quote and his companys stance  
on
the issue.

Mulki replied, We are not anti-Linux. I made this quote about 3-4 years
back, when we had first experimented with a Linux Sendmail solution on
our distributed architecture. There were immediate problems with address
book synchronization and complaints from users that mails were not being
delivered on time. Moreover, the cost of support was very high, which I
think still holds true today.

Cautioning Linux users, Mulki added, The cost of purchasing an OS
constitutes only 2-3% of our IT budget (a figure that most CIOs would  
agree
with). If any CIO is planning to jump the gun by just looking at Linuxs
free tag, he is extremely foolish. CIOs must realize that the  
applications
are not free, and neither is the consultancy and service involved with
supporting the system.

Commenting on Linuxs so-called Open Source edge, Mulki countered, Even  
if
tomorrow Microsoft opens up its Windows source code, what purpose does
it serve for me? What do I have to do with kernel-level tweaking? We are
a manufacturing company and the source code is useless to us. Its only
developers and academia who find source code valuable. Regarding the  
future
of Linux at Godrej, it is safe to say that currently we are not  
considering
it at all.

Finally the vendor perspective: The two entities in question, painted  
their
own understanding of the facts behind the Get the Facts campaign.

A spokesperson from Microsoft India commented, The campaign was  
launched in
India in April this year. Over the last few years, and the last one  
year in
particular, there has been substantial commentary on the Linux v/s  
Microsoft
debate, and the feedback that we received from customers was that we as  
a
company had not made enough of an effort to educate our customers about
our value proposition vis-?-vis this new technology that they were  
hearing
about. "Get the Facts" is Microsoft's pragmatic approach towards  
educating
its customers and clearing some of the myths associated with the Open  
Source
v/s proprietary software debate.

Not only that, external sources are also taking the liberty to define  
how
this impacts us. We realized that our initial reservations about  
commenting
on Linux had allowed confusion and misconceptions to set in, and that we
had also permitted others to define how our operating systems compare  
with
Linux. With the Get the Facts campaign, our aim is to cut through that  
hype
and confusion, and present customers with facts that allow them to make  
an
informed decision about their platform choice. The areas that we have  
chosen
for this communication campaign are the ones that we feel are currently  
the
most hazy / confusing for our customers. These include TCO, security and
reliability, the spokesperson continued.

So Does Microsoft really consider Linux as a potential threat to its
business in the Indian enterprise market? The spokesperson replied, The  
fact
is that Linux competes with us in certain areas. Just like we do not  
ignore
any other competitor, we dont ignore Linux either. Our success has been
based on the fact that we always keep the customer's interest on top of  
our
minds.

And what does India's foremost Linux vendor Red Hat feel about  
Microsoft's
"Get the Facts" campaign? Javed Tapia, director, Red Hat India, replied,
"This aggressive advertising campaign is a demonstration of how  
potentially
damaging Linux is to Microsoft's business. Our climbing sales figures
combined with a majority of financial and business analysis, points to a
global macro trend that Linux is a burgeoning platform--considered as a
viable alternative to proprietary software, versus the micro trend  
indicated
by a couple of customers in these advertisements. At the end of the day,
I feel that customers are intelligent enough not to be carried away by
advertisements and decide for themselves. The fact that Linux has come  
so
far without any major advertising effort is the strongest testimonial to
support that fact."

Some may argue that the war is between Linux and Unix, with the Redmond
giant nowhere in the picture. The war back home isnt about communalism,  
and
most CIOs are least bothered about the open v/s proprietary software  
debate.
At the end of the day its all about business, and thats the bottom line.

However, the bottom line is that the campaign certainly raises some
uncomfortable questions. With all three quotes taken from dated case
studies (some of them going as far as 4 years back), their significance  
in
the present day seems diluted. Nevertheless, the campaign has definitely
solidified one fact that will resonate in the market for years to come:  
Push
the giant from Redmond too far, and you will have a tough battle  
staring you
in your face--and no holds barred competition at that.

But in the end the ball is in the CIOs court. Competition will  
eventually
lead to meaty price cuts. All that remains to be seen now is: How many  
CIOs
will eventually Get Their Facts Right?



my comment on the article is below -

> I rather think this Microsoft ad blitz has become more of a campaign
> against the sendmail mailserver, rather than against linux - two of
> the CIOs surveyed said they tried to deploy sendmail as a mailserver,
> failed to do so. No reflection on their abilities, sendmail is not as
> "easy" as point and click exchange .. but a P-II running sendmail on
> linux can host mail for several hundred users, while you would need a
> top of the line P-IV with at least two or three times the amount of
> RAM to run a minimal exchange install for a comparable number of
> users. Several ISPs around the world are running mail for millions of
> users using sendmail, postfix, qmail and other unix / linux based
> mailservers. Trying to run those on exchange would automatically mean
> "quadruple the number of servers you use", just for starters .. not
> to mention the stability and performance issues you would inevitably
> run into. Speaking as someone who helps run mail for a large ISP with
> over 40 million users, on a platform that's mostly linux (where it
> isn't FreeBSD) ... all I can say is that the two ex CIOs surveyed
> could just go hire a competent mail admin who knows his job, rather
> than complain about how difficult it all is. --srs



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