| Wednesday, January 9, 2002 |
21:12 - Microsoft is Caught (Again) Ballot-Box Stuffing
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2102244,00.html
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Can you believe this? Not for the first time, an online poll (this one deciding whether Java or Microsoft's .NET initiative was the more popular choice for building web services) has been abused by Microsoft itself in order to "prove" the superiority of their products.
Before the ballot-box rigging:
Java 69.5%
.NET 21.5%
After:
Java 12%
.NET 75%
All because someone at MS sent around an e-mail saying "PLEASE STOP AND VOTE FOR .NET!", and apparently everybody did.
See, that's what I'm talking about, with ethics. It wasn't just people casting a single honest vote-- even assuming the employees in question were able to justify their own work on .NET as qualifying as "building web services" in the sense intended by the poll. No, this was people setting up scripts to try to cast multiple votes, people manually voting over and over again... hey, never mind whether anyone will notice or anything. Just rock the vote! It's the American Way! Hey, the public supports it!
Maybe any company would have acted this way in MS's position. But I know the people in my workplace wouldn't, and I don't think we're unique. No, I think it takes a special kind of person to work at Microsoft. And that's why Americans love 'em.
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