They call it fud; the practice of issuing information, not necessarily accurate information, deliberately calculated to unnerve potential customers of rival products or services and influence their buying decisions.
IBM famously used the strategy thirty odd years ago when Amdahl threatened to nibble away at its mainframe dominance - but its roots go back much further.
To be fair, today's technology monopolist, Microsoft is not the only company to regularly use fud (fear, uncertainty and doubt) as a strategic weapon. These days this kind of bullying has become almost routine.
Yet the software giant has managed to use fud more effectively than most companies - often with devastating effect. It's risky because there's a boy-who-cried-wolf effect with fud, try it too often and people learn not to take any notice.
This could be about to happen now Steve Ballmer has warned Linux users the open source operating system infringes Microsoft's patents. Notice Ballmer doesn't say which patents.
He says
"that product uses our patented intellectual property is a problem for our shareholders. We spend $7 billion a year on R&D, our shareholders expect us to protect or license or get economic benefit from our patented innovations."
In other words, ”we may sue the backside off anyone who chooses to buy Linux instead of Windows.
Clearly Ballmer is trying to frighten customers away from Linux. He’s probably also trying to pressure companies such as Oracle, IBM and Dell who have made major commitments to Linux.
So, does Linux infringe any Microsoft patents? Probably. Remember Amazon owns a patent for one click shopping. Software companies like Microsoft own patents for all kinds of trivial things such as drawing circles on screens and so on.
Microsoft's bullying history and Ballmer’s heavy-handed threats over Linux go a long way to justify the arguments of those people who believe software should not be patentable. Was this what Ballmer intended?
