Microsoft giving free acer ferrari notebooks to bloggers
Microsoft giving free acer ferrari notebooks to bloggers to review Microsoft Windows Vista operating system.
Acer ferrari 1000/500 notebook computer use - the Ferrari sports a space-age carbon-fiber cover, the same material used by Ferrari to build its prize-winning Formula One race cars. This notebook PC comes with AMD Turion processor and other high end specs.
This is not new marketing promotion, most hardware review site always get such goodies for free. But this is first time Microsoft giving goodies to bloggers.
Scott Beale has decided to auction the machine and donate the proceeds to the EFF. See what bloggers are doing with their Microsoft Ferrari laptops.
I am not complaining anything here (Hey I have much powerful notebook PC and I do work on 2-8 way SMP servers almost everyday). I think it is a good marketing idea. Personally I would like to read a review that compare both Linux and Windows Vista side by side.
However this raises some questions such as - Integrity of bloggers. What do you think?
Update: Nokia is giving out expensive cell phones to bloggers just like Microsoft gave notebooks.
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Here is the thing though - MS is not going to offer the notebook to anyone who would actually do a 100% honest and truthful review trashing Vista when and where it deserves it, and then follow it up with a second post titled: “HOWTO uninstall vista and install Linux on the Microsoft Ferrari laptop” just to spite them.
People who do get these laptops are hand picked “Microsoft friendly”, or neutral bloggers who might be swayed to write a positive review by a nice free present.
No blogger who would actually want to do a side-by-side comparison with linux or OS X would be given one. Same goes with people who openly support open source, or who post dual-boot howtos.
The way I see it, there is no such thing as blogger integrity when it comes to software. Software is like religion - everyone either has one, or has an opinion about existing ones. Every blogger is biassed. Some bloggers believe in Open Source, some trully believe in MS monoculture. Others are shills who will praise whomever pays their bills. And the few people who really try to be neutral are may still be biased because of their views on standards, monopoly, drm, copyright, vendor lock-in and etc…
So, I would essentially categorize all the bloggers who received a free Laptop from MS into 4 groups:
1. Convicted Microsoft Friendly Blogger
2. Convicted Shill
3. Proven non-controversial tech blogger who will probably give a positive review upon receiving a gift
4. “Proffesional” reviewer who will try to give a fair-and-ballanced review by reading 40-50 existing “neutral” vista reviews and then reiterating the sentiments found there, so that his review adheres to a the established standard doesn’t stand out that much
It would be to risky for them to give laptops to anyone else.
Luke,
You have raised some excellent points. Some bloggers are not tech-savvy but they received PC. Out of 90 bloggers only 16-17 people acknowledged gift others will simply write review.
what website do you go on to do a blog for vista
Makes the .NET Software run faster