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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Microsoft slammed over misleading Windows Linux claims

The Inquirer: "The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a series of public complaints over an advert in a magazine comparing the cost of Linux versus Microsoft Windows. An advert it ran compared the two operating systems to each other, but Windows was running on a measly dual 900MHz Xeon configuration, while Linux was running on a z900 IBM mainframe. The advert appeared in an IT magazine and was headed: 'Weighing the cost of Linux vs Windows? Let's review the facts'. The ad contained a graph comparing the cost in US dollars between a Linux images running on two z900 mainframe CPUs and a Windows Server 2003 image running two 900MHz Intel Xeons chips ... The IBM z900 running Linux was 10 times more expensive than running the Windows OS. It would have been possible to compare the two OSes on similar hardware. And the ASA ruled readers would infer the ad compared Linux and Windows OSes only. The ASA said: 'Because the comparison included the hardware, as well as the operating system and therefore did not show that running a Linux operating system was ten times more expensive than running a Windows operating system, the Authority concluded that the advertisement was misleading.'"

Now if only Bill Gates would get up on stage at every opportunity and tell huge whoppers like Steve Jobs, then we'd really have something to complain about. As it is, one dubious magazine ad is pretty much a misdemeanor. But still, this is stupid, and clearly misleading.

[ Posted at 5:12 PM | Permalink ]