Microsoft touts SCROOGLE merch: Hopes YOU'LL PAY to dump on rival If you're bothered by the various ways Google uses the data you submit to its services to serve you targeted ads, then Microsoft has the T-shirt for you. Or a coffee mug, perhaps. You know – stuff that totally isn't ads. Microsoft aims for subtlety with its new merchandise line The software giant has opened a new section of …
Embraced, extinguished, extortioned, upgraded, unsecuritized, left to flap in the wind, innvationunbotherized incompatibilitized, opendocumentfomartized, walled gardened, apiundocumentized, apisurrepetitiouslychangerized, notuspportized, ballmered, fudded, EULAed, intellectually propertized, linuxcommunisted.
The death of Microsoft cannot come soon enough, and I do hope it is a horrid, messy one.
>> Microsoft announced record profits not long ago
A company with no future will soon burn through a few billion - Just ask Nokia. The Xbox unit alone reportedly costs 3 billion. M$ hides these losses by putting them in the same division as the patent extortion scheme.
>> and seem to finally be making a big impact in mobile
Have I missed something? Where's this big impact you're talking about? The craptastic Windows Mobile had around 10-15% of the market at its height, yet Windows Fisher Price today only has 3.5%. If that's your definition of a big impact, then I'd hate to see mediocre.
They aren't actually making any inroads in Mobile. 3% and falling for Windows Phone is nothing to shout home about, and anyone that inadvertently ended up with one won't be making that mistake again.
Microsoft are really clever as manipulating the media, those record profits most likely related to a particular quarter, as a result of hiding loads of losses in the quarter before, or for a particular product group, or a specific region, they never talk about the other areas that are haemorrhaging money.
Microsoft's impending death IS coming quickly. In all the areas that matter, Microsoft are nowhere anymore. Their only remaining strong sector, Windows, is not redundant. Nobody buys them anymore. Their latest console appears to carry on the turd-like tradition of it's two predecessors, and Office, who pays money for an Office suite in 2013?
This scroogled stuff is a last ditch desperation by Microsoft, as a personal screw them, I uninstalled my last bit of purchased software last night (Office) and installed LibreOffice in it's place.
I feel the same about A*... The death of A* cannot come soon enough, and I do hope it is a horrid, messy one.
Of course, that is just my opinion - as subjective and emotional as it may be.
The real truth - without emotion - is that all of the big boys (MS, Google, Apple, Samsung, etc) offer fine products and a great variety of consumer choices. All of the consumer/fanbois arguing is simply a colossal waste of time that only makes us angry with each other about things that are totally meaningless and exist completely outside of our world (except for writers that depend on the hate to draw people to their articles (i.e. zdnet, etc)). All of us (myself included) would simply be better off if we stopped posting to these discussions or, even better, stopped reading them. So, after I submit this I am closing my browser, getting up from the computer, and going to see what my wife and children are up to. Do you have something better to do?
Why not addressing this directly at Microsoft? Suggesting them to shut the f***ck up would also be nice.
..fanbois arguing is simply a colossal waste of time
It's particularly disgusting when a colossal waste is conducted by a psychopathic colossus with plenty of extorted money still enough to squander on some moronic PR campaigns.
RedneckMBA, if we wanted real information about computer technology we'd be reading Anandtech.
It's risky for Microsoft to be running these scroogled ads, since they are not without sin. But I am glad that people are made more aware of practices like email scraping. Google has built a surveillance machine that must make the NSA envious.
Remember the Tories using the Evil Eyes Blair campaign. That really worked for them when they were hammered in the General Election.
Negative campaigning is the last bastion of those bereft of ideas and a lesser product.
Google should release medicated bog paper with pictures of Bill Gates and Steve Balmer on the sheets to provide relief for those who have been well and truly shafted by Microsoft.
Simply LOVE THAT MUG. ^_^
Usually I truly hate corporate logo / phrase / swish / ad-cum-'style' motif, but sometimes fun is simply...fun. If I drank coffee (or tea) I certainly would not mind it being in that mug.
Assuming that it was not made in China with lead-tainted glaze, that is.
This latest tactic in the already pathetic (if not down right dishonest) Scroogled campaign is despicable. Not to mention unprecedented in the software industry. I work for one of the biggest software companies in the world (who happens to compete directly, as well as partner with Google depending on which part of the business you are in) and would be astounded and ashamed if we stooped to this level of bad taste marketing. The fact that MS are actually selling these items shows even more how desperate and out of ideas they actually are.
Is it any wonder their products are awful when they choose to invest their cash and the skills of their employees on these campaigns? Instead of actually improving their existing products or developing new ones (that other companies have not shown them there is a market for in the first place).
The CMO should be escorted from the building for approving the Scroogled campaign in the first place. Although on reflection it may have been forced on her by Ballmer.
You know google doesn't actually read your emails when it scans them any more than Microsoft reads your email when it scans them for Hotmail.
Had a hotmail account years ago and was always amazed by how much spam got through. Then I read how the spammers were paying MS to allow their spam through the filters.
Why can't you opt out of using Google's services? Have they hardcoded it into the BIOS of your system? Overwritten system libraries with versions which upload all your stuff to them? Forced you at gunpoint to type their URI's into the address bar of IE?
Seriously, I along with many others am genuinely interested in why you can't opt out of Google.
You can sort of opt out by not using the services. Search; there's Ixquick and DuckDuckGo; Browser there's multiple choices (even de-fanged versions of Chrome); Lots of choice for email. And, of course, you need to load your browser up with anti-trackers like Ghostery and similar.
But it's an effort and requires a certain amount of self-sacrifice so most people don't bother.
Also, to conduct business a lot of people use GTalk and the document thing, so you can only opt out so far.
a lot of people use GTalk
… which is just XMPP under the covers. Don't like Google? Use any public server or start up your own, and you can still talk to people on Google Talk or any other public XMPP server.
Let's see you do the same with Skype or MSN Messenger.
Seriously, I along with many others am genuinely interested in why you can't opt out of Google.
To use the Android trademark, the closed-source Google applications must be included. But more than this, manufacturers are prohibited from releasing both Google-approved and non-Google approved devices, which is an enormous barrier to forking Android.
Amazon is of course having a go - and best of luck to them - but it's an uphill battle.
Can you do the same to Microsoft Windows, just for a start?
No, but the question was about Google.
So don't use Android, use iOS or WinPho.
As it happens, I don't use Android, but who cares but me? :)
This idea that everyone is forced to somehow use Google is complete guff, and I do wish people would stop going around posting such rubbish.
But it isn't complete rubbish. Why do you think that Samsung handsets have so many dual applications? They're forced by terms of the license agreement to bundle the Google services, which are not open source.
Google employees have themselves said that the license agreement is how they get manufacturers to do what Google wants, which is ensure that buyers are faced with Google services, first and foremost, and that has an enormous effect on consumer choice.
Regarding the scroogled campaign, it is, like almost all MS public relations, cringingly bad.
To use the Android trademark, the closed-source Google applications must be included. But more than this, manufacturers are prohibited from releasing both Google-approved and non-Google approved devices, which is an enormous barrier to forking Android
So don't use Android, use iOS or WinPho.
This idea that everyone is forced to somehow use Google is complete guff, and I do wish people would stop going around posting such rubbish.
@obnoxiousGit: "I along with many others am genuinely interested in why you can't opt out of Google."
You may not have a Google account or an Android phone, but your emails end up on Google servers because you communicate with people using GMail. You also browse, and even if you never use Google's search you still wander, perhaps unwittingly, to sites using Google services and collecting information in the process (e.g., via Google Analytics). Thus Google can still guess your age, sex, tax bracket, interest in S&M, and other useful things with a significant degree of confidence and serve targeted ads to you. All this without you ever having agreed to their ToS or browsing to google.com.
You can go a fairly long way to protect yourself in a multitude of ways. That's not opting out though - mostly it's taking active measures against the effects (ads and analytics), which is a totally different kettle of fish. Do all that, but the uneasy feeling that some info is collected by the do-no-evil company will remain.
In this sense Google are much more pervasive, IMHO, than Microsoft. This is not so much due to them being inherently more evil, but to the difference in the main business model. It is easier to avoid Microsoft (I have, for most of my career), than Google. Blocking ads and 3rd party analytics is simpler, and if you do, it may even make Google less interested in you (spammers are not interested in the non-gullible part of their audience, either). That's still not an opt-out.
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