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cute quote...
Robert X. Cringley's column for PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit19980820.html
The most interesting part is at the end:
There are certain litmus tests that can be applied to the marketing of
high technology and one of the most important is looking at the arguments
used to keep current customers in line. This generally goes in three
steps. Step one is to say bad things about competitive technology when
you don't, yourself, have any products that can actually go head-to-head.
Step two is to say your stuff is just as good as the competitor's stuff
because you finally have a semi-competitive release. Note that step two
requires the complete repudiation of step one, which somehow never seems
to bother Microsoft. Finally step three -- the desperation step -- is to
say that switching to a competitive technology isn't cost-effective. It's
cheaper to stay with our mediocre stuff than to switch to the better stuff
coming from somewhere else.
Now look at Microsoft's claims for Windows NT versus specifically Netware
and Linux. Bill Gates has dismissed both products as great 80's
technology, but not appropriate for the 90's. That's step one. And with NT
5.0, Microsoft is claiming its Active Directory is the equal of Netware's
NDS. That's step two. And in recent discussions with Microsoft
salespeople, some of my corporate contacts now report a shift in the
anti-Linux strategy from "NT is better" to "its going to cost a lot of
money to move away from NT." Step three.