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Microsoft trains Best Buy Linux assassins

Originally posted by: MrChad
Does Best Buy offer netbooks with Linux pre-installed?
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I don't know, but I doubt that they offer Linux machines. The thing is, ppl ARE going to ask about Linux.

I'm a BSD/Linux/Solaris/Windows user...

I've been watching these various OS evolve (on the desktop). It's finally to the point that they're ALL looking the same - dittos for Snow Leopard. And, Linux is coming on strong!

My take on the situation (at BB) is...

Now that Linux is a viable (even preferable) alternative to Windows - and a clear threat to 7 - Microsoft wants to nip it in the bud by spreading FUD.

Good luck! 😀
 
Meh, I'm sure Apple trains its store employees in the same sort of marketing doublespeak to handle customers that ask questions about Windows PCs.
 
Well I would have to side with them on this point. I could see a store selling a bunch of linux netbooks and having a bunch of them coming back becasue the user cant install office\<insert name of very important program to them> becasue they didnt know what and OS is.

Yes there are alot of apps that can replace Windows specific ones but most users dont like change.

 
Originally posted by: TheKub
Well I would have to side with them on this point. I could see a store selling a bunch of linux netbooks and having a bunch of them coming back becasue the user cant install office\<insert name of very important program to them> becasue they didnt know what and OS is.
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When Dell began offering desktops and notebooks with Linux, Dell specifically noted that they'd only support the hardware and not the OS or software.

As to the training, it's not new. Microsoft has offered "Linux vs. Windows" training for partners and resellers for at least four years.
 
I like how being able to run Windows Live is an important bullet point on the 3rd slide...

And I love how they keep touting how Win7 is the same old Windows that meets customer's expectations even though Windows is what has gotten people to expect their PC to run like crap eventually and crash continously.

When a Lilnux vulnerability is found there's no guarantee that an update will be published? MS has downplayed, delayed patching and even refused to patch things in their software. And their EULA screams "You can't can't sue us if a bug in our software loses you money", how reassuring is that?

Well I would have to side with them on this point. I could see a store selling a bunch of linux netbooks and having a bunch of them coming back becasue the user cant install office\<insert name of very important program to them> becasue they didnt know what and OS is.
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CompUSA used to have an Apple section, do you think their employees were trained to point you to the Windows section?

Of course CompUSA might not be the best example since they're not exactly around anymore...

Meh, I'm sure Apple trains its store employees in the same sort of marketing doublespeak to handle customers that ask questions about Windows PCs.
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Marketing speak is one thing, but some of the points in there are blatant lies.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman

Marketing speak is one thing, but some of the points in there are blatant lies.
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I don't think they lied about anything. They may not have told the whole truth, but everything in there was accurate.
 
They didn't lie about anything definitely. Bend the truth, mislead, beat around the bush, sure. Now Apple? That's company that blatantly lies about its products and its competitors.
 
Microsoft promotes their own product? Stop the fucking presses! Of course they do, why the hell wouldn't they. They're going to push every vendor and retailer to sell their product over the competition, regardless of who that competition is. And no, MS is NOT feeling the pressure from Linux, the OS is not even a footnote in the retail world. Even Apple has only recently began to put any kind of pressure on MS, Linux is still miles away from that status.
 
Yep, linux matters so little they don't even have to have any kind of training or marketing to talk people out of it when they ask for it.
 
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
When Dell began offering desktops and notebooks with Linux, Dell specifically noted that they'd only support the hardware and not the OS or software.
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I dont know if Best Buy would have that luxury. Its one thing to sell a product to someone and their only recourse is to call India but with a B&M even if the salesman warned you of the "limitations" you can still go to the store and raise a fuss which looks bad.

 
Originally posted by: TheKub
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
When Dell began offering desktops and notebooks with Linux, Dell specifically noted that they'd only support the hardware and not the OS or software.
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I dont know if Best Buy would have that luxury. Its one thing to sell a product to someone and their only recourse is to call India but with a B&M even if the salesman warned you of the "limitations" you can still go to the store and raise a fuss which looks bad.
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Not to mention return the product at great cost to BB.

This is a marketing sales powerpoint. What the hell do people expect? The netbooks are the only presence Linux has on the retail front. Of course Microsoft is going to make sure it doesnt gain a foothold.

Apple is much more of a threat to MS dominance than Linux at this point. Has Linux even broke .5% retail marketshare yet?
 
I don't think they lied about anything. They may not have told the whole truth, but everything in there was accurate.
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Sure they did.

They said you can start Win7 without having to relearn anything which isn't true. Sure lots is the same but lots is different too.

They said there's no authorized support for Linux. I haven't looked into the cost but you can get support from Canonical, RedHat, HP, etc. But usually there's no need, just like with Windows.

The compatible with Windows logos have always meant absolutely nothing. If you buy cheap hardware it's going to suck regardless of the logos on the box.

Linux doesn't require a lot of time to maintain and the number of updates is completely unrelated to it. If anything, Linux takes less time to maintain because more apps are covered by the package manager so you have less to think about and more of the system is kept current. And it's never unclear which updates are optional, they should all be applied.

Linux users aren't on their own with regards to vulnerabilities. Canonical, RedHat, etc take responsibility for their packages and do at least as good and probably better of a job of releasing patches.

I haven't looked at what's installed locally because I usually go straight to Google, but there's lots of Linux documentation on the Internet. Just about everyone I know starts with Google anyway because they've been taught that the local help is worthless from years of MS' crap documentation.

Even Apple has only recently began to put any kind of pressure on MS, Linux is still miles away from that status.
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Apparently not, otherwise MS wouldn't waste their time.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Originally posted by: sourceninja
Windows boasts the lead with 91% market share, down 5% from March of 2003. Mac holds 6% market share, an increase of 4% from March, 2003. Finally, Linux has doubled its market share since 2003 with a current 4%.

Source http://www.neowin.net/news/mai...-linux-and-the-desktop
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And they got those numbers from where?
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Especially since they add up to 101%
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Originally posted by: sourceninja
Windows boasts the lead with 91% market share, down 5% from March of 2003. Mac holds 6% market share, an increase of 4% from March, 2003. Finally, Linux has doubled its market share since 2003 with a current 4%.

Source http://www.neowin.net/news/mai...-linux-and-the-desktop
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And they got those numbers from where?
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The page has a link to ask the author.
 
Honestly, people who buy a computer at Best Buy should probably avoid Linux. Linux is for people who know better than to ask a BB employee a question.
 
The page has a link to ask the author.
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I don't care enough to put in that much effort to find out, but the author should be responsible enough to include sources himself.

Honestly, people who buy a computer at Best Buy should probably avoid Linux. Linux is for people who know better than to ask a BB employee a question.
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If they're told that it's not a "normal PC" and don't expect it to run Windows programs I don't see the problem. I would think most people looking at netbooks would be expecing to just browse, email, etc which Linux does just fine.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
They said you can start Win7 without having to relearn anything which isn't true. Sure lots is the same but lots is different too.
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The windows UI is basicly the same since 95. My mother got a Vista laptop (old laptop had 98) and she was up and running fine for the most part. The only thing I had to help her with was with joining the wireless network (which wasnt around\prevalent in 98 era).

Originally posted by: Nothinman
They said there's no authorized support for Linux. I haven't looked into the cost but you can get support from Canonical, RedHat, HP, etc. But usually there's no need, just like with Windows.
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I am only aware of enterprise support not end user. Does home user support exist?

Originally posted by: Nothinman
If they're told that it's not a "normal PC" and don't expect it to run Windows programs I don't see the problem. I would think most people looking at netbooks would be expecing to just browse, email, etc which Linux does just fine.
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Which I wont deny that Linux does fine at, but alot of people who want to "just surf and email" forget that they also want to have Itunes, and also have a scanner\camera\other peripheral that they want to use that doesnt support Linux (at least typical PC user level support at least).

 
The windows UI is basicly the same since 95. My mother got a Vista laptop (old laptop had 98) and she was up and running fine for the most part. The only thing I had to help her with was with joining the wireless network (which wasnt around\prevalent in 98 era).
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And the KDE and Gnome UIs are pretty much as close to Win98 as Vista or W7 are so she would be fine there too then.

I am only aware of enterprise support not end user. Does home user support exist?
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http://www.ubuntu.com/support/services

They have 3 levels of home user support and online training.

Which I wont deny that Linux does fine at, but alot of people who want to "just surf and email" forget that they also want to have Itunes, and also have a scanner\camera\other peripheral that they want to use that doesnt support Linux (at least typical PC user level support at least).
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For a normal notebook or desktop I'd agree, but not so much with a netbook. For most people that stuff would probably fall under the "would be nice" category.

The last few cameras I've seen all showed up as USB storage devices and gphoto2 supports a lot of the proprietary camera protocols for those that don't. Scanners are another issue, however they're pretty rare for non-professionals these days and I'll bet the people with a scanner already have it hooked up to a desktop at home.

I don't own an iPod myself, but I've heard that Rhythmbox works pretty well with them. It's not iTunes, but in many ways that's probably a good thing.
 
Sure they did.

They said you can start Win7 without having to relearn anything which isn't true. Sure lots is the same but lots is different too.

It's still fundamentally Windows, and anyone who's used a previous version should find thing easily. The crying you see around here is people bitching to hear themselves make noise, instead of putting in the 1/4oz of effort it takes to see what the small changes are.

They said there's no authorized support for Linux. I haven't looked into the cost but you can get support from Canonical, RedHat, HP, etc. But usually there's no need, just like with Windows.

Linux typically doesn't have support. Someone walking into BestBuy isn't putting RedHat on their computer, or buying a corporate version of Ubuntu. Windows will get you a year of support from MS itself, or the oem who built your machine. I almost got denied tech support for fixing someones DSL line because I was using a Linux box to access the modem.

The compatible with Windows logos have always meant absolutely nothing. If you buy cheap hardware it's going to suck regardless of the logos on the box.

The Windows logo means exactly what it says. The equipment will work with Windows. There's no easy way to know if a piece of hardware/software works with Linux.

Linux doesn't require a lot of time to maintain and the number of updates is completely unrelated to it. If anything, Linux takes less time to maintain because more apps are covered by the package manager so you have less to think about and more of the system is kept current. And it's never unclear which updates are optional, they should all be applied.

Depends on how you look at it. I definitely spend more time maintaining my Linux boxes than I do Windows.

Linux users aren't on their own with regards to vulnerabilities. Canonical, RedHat, etc take responsibility for their packages and do at least as good and probably better of a job of releasing patches.

Which Linux? They didn't mention RedHat, or Ubuntu in the ad. With some Linux you're on your own, and no more development is being done. Also, not all distros are speedy with the updates.

I haven't looked at what's installed locally because I usually go straight to Google, but there's lots of Linux documentation on the Internet.

I think the typical Linux user's half retarded :^D I wish I had a $ for every instruction I tried to follow, but it was either missing steps, had steps out of order, or was just plain wrong. Some Linux has no built in help, some has adequate help. Windows built in help is rarely helpful, but my questions are usually higher end than the typical user's are. I imagine it's helpful to someone who wants to know the absolute basics.
 
It's still fundamentally Windows, and anyone who's used a previous version should find thing easily. The crying you see around here is people bitching to hear themselves make noise, instead of putting in the 1/4oz of effort it takes to see what the small changes are.
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And generally the people here are more technical than someone buying a computer at BestBuy, so those people have more of a chance of running into problems.

Linux typically doesn't have support. Someone walking into BestBuy isn't putting RedHat on their computer, or buying a corporate version of Ubuntu. Windows will get you a year of support from MS itself, or the oem who built your machine. I almost got denied tech support for fixing someones DSL line because I was using a Linux box to access the modem.
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I'm pretty sure OEM licenses of Windows don't get you support from MS since you're supposed to call the OEM.

And Canonical sells home user support. The basic is ~$150 for 3 years and advanced is ~$300 for 3 years, both are still cheaper than a retail Windows license for the same amount of time.

Depends on how you look at it. I definitely spend more time maintaining my Linux boxes than I do Windows.
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Then I'd say you're doing something wrong. Every couple of days I run aptitude here to check for updates cause I'm on Debian sid, but that takes ~2 minutes.

Which Linux? They didn't mention RedHat, or Ubuntu in the ad. With some Linux you're on your own, and no more development is being done. Also, not all distros are speedy with the updates.
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I'm sure it would be either RedHat or Ubuntu unless a specific OEM decided to build their own distro but that would be retarded.

MS' history with updates isn't exactly spectacular either. Right now there's a SMB2 remotely exploitable BSOD with proof of concept python code for which there's no available patch yet.

I think the typical Linux user's half retarded :^D I wish I had a $ for every instruction I tried to follow, but it was either missing steps, had steps out of order, or was just plain wrong. Some Linux has no built in help, some has adequate help. Windows built in help is rarely helpful, but my questions are usually higher end than the typical user's are. I imagine it's helpful to someone who wants to know the absolute basics.
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No, we just hate doing documentation so we don't write anything own until after we figure it all out and then going back through every step to reproduce it is cumbersome so occasionally steps get missed. =)

But commercial documentation is usually just as bad, if not worse. I was actually reading a "quick" install guide that was over a hundred pages and had things like "Make sure everything is unplugged from the server, especially ethernet" followed by "Turn on the server and remotely connect to it" and pictures that didn't match the instructions beside them.
 
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