EmmonsNet

It's pretty obvious that Microsoft is getting nervous with the upcoming release of it's latest operating system, Windows 7. Why wouldn't they be after the total blowback they endured over the worst thing they put on the market since Windows ME - Vista. It's no surprise that the Redmond software giant just had to start spewing it's usual Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in an attempt to distract consumers and retailers from it has clay feet.

The latest salvo from it's arsenal of flimsy marketing tool set to convince retailers how great their products are is the 'Get The Facts' corpse freshly dug up, dressed in a puke green training modules targeted at staff members of retail chains like Best Buy.

Fortunately, a few of the staffers at Best Buy are not just some mindless wage slaves punching a clock to support their weekly beer consumption while attending the local community college. A few of them are Linux users smart enough to call bullshit when they see it. Especially when they are given 'training material' that is just a cover for an attempt to sway them towards discourage consumers from choosing any other operating system other than Windows and full of straight out lies.

Put your waders on, because it's about to get deep.

Some of the superior compatibility claims made by these training modules claim that Linux has inferior support for commonly used devices and formats like MP3, digital cameras, iPod, scanners and printers. Back before the year 2000, that may have been true when almost all the desktop Linux distributions were still a 'hackers nirvana'. But in the past couple years Linux has been more Roy Rogers towards these devices and formats. It never meets one that it doesn't like. Not once in recent living memory have I plugged a digital camera, printer or MP3 player into my Linux box that it did not recognize and have up and running in a few minutes.

Another claim these 'training materials' makes is Windows software compatibility. Riddle me this Steve Ballmer - since the early 90's, when the hell has Microsoft written a single piece of software that was designed to run on an OS other than Windows? Why is it that default file formats for Office 2007 will cannot be opened, read or edited by any previous versions of Office? Out of the box, any current Linux distrobution has more tools to open, read and edit more third party file formats than you can shake a wireless mouse at.

This next point really pile of bullshit. '.Familiar and Ease of Use'. Here MS claims their OS has it and Linux does not. Did the wizards at MS ever bother to even look at the Vista desktop? Every computer user I know that installed Vista spent days trying to figure out how to navigate around and get the simplest configurations changed in their new 'cooler-than-thou-we-ripped-off-mac-OS-X-and-screwed-it-up' interface. With every computer user I have let use my Linux desktop or helped them install Linux - all I had to do to get them surfing the web, checking their email, listening to music, chatting, watching movies is point and say 'Here is your web browser and here is your email client and here is your chat client and here is your music / video player'. There response was always something along the lines of 'Oh, that's it .. wow.'. Icons on the desktop and a 'Start' button. Those two things are all most computer users ever need to start computing and only a blind person could not find them on freshly installed Linux desktop.

Another outright lie presented by MS is the claim that Linux has inferior W-WAN support. Out of the box, my fresh install of Linux recognized and was happy to work with my Verizon Wireless card. I don't know how to get that much more supported when it readily works with the largest W-WAN provider in the market.

Then what I would consider to be the crowning achievement in these training materials ( aka colossal pile of crap from the MS marketing engine ) is the statement: 'What most customers want' in reference to Windows. Lets correct this one. What customers want is something that works right out of the box with as little or no hiccups, bugs and exploitable 'features' as humanly possible. They did not want all of the features, flashy interface, nagging security features and bloat that was Vista and will more than likely be lurking in Windows 7.

Read more at:

• The Register : Microsoft Tells US Retailers Linux is Rubbish
• Advanced Linux Technology : Microshit Trains Best Buy Employees to Boo Linux to Customers 
• ZDnet : Microsoft Trains Best Buy Linux Assassins