unGrid

Thanks for stopping by! Hey, why don't you do what all the cool kids are doing and subscribe to my RSS feed? You know you want to, so go ahead, be bad, be very very bad... :) Thanks.

I am sure most of you have already read their fill on the latest Microsoft controversy. I do not plan on discussing it any further here. Just for the sake of anyone who is not up to date, Microsoft paid a blogger to write information on Wikipedia regarding an open source page. Microsoft wanted what they called a more “fair and balanced” article. Then the blogger went and posted a story on his own blog about how Microsoft just paid him. This was followed by a big uproar in the blogosphere of course.

After reading a number of articles discussing this incident, I think this highlights in no uncertain terms a lesson that all companies with products and services to sell should learn. Instead of wasting an incredible amount of time and effort on spin, how about you put that time into developing a product or service that your customers will love in the first place? If you have a product or service that your customers love, there will be absolutely no need to prompt or pay anyone to write or talk about your product. They will do so without hesitation because people do that with things they love. They are passionate about things they love and want to tell anyone and everyone who will listen. Do you think that a story about Apple paying bloggers to write about the iPod will ever happen? Of course not.

Microsoft, if you felt like your Office Open XML was not getting the due it deserved who is to blame for that? The writers in Wikipedia or you for releasing a product that does not capture the minds and imaginations of the people you covet? When this latest debacle calms down, sit down and think about how much time your employees spent dealing with the negative press and then think how that time could of been used for better pursuits like developing products that people will want to sing your praises from the rooftops.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Technorati Tags: Microsoft controversy, Microsoft, Wikipedia, blogger