Scott, I'm sorry, but this looks like old skool FUD dressed up as transparency.
Tell me how I'm wrong :-)
damn it.. Alex you saw straight through that one, I hope others aren't as smart as you.. i'll chalk that up to a loss for the Microsoft FUD campaign.
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Seriously
What's so "FUD" about it?
Scott Barnes
FUD Evangelist
Microsoft.
thanks for dropping by Scott. I guess my question is: does the following quote from your post sound like FUD:
"I've seen the vision for the future, I was pulled aside and shown where the direction for some of our products are going and how we will get there. I see how Adobe are going to debunk some of these as best they can, but in the end this isn't really about Microsoft vs Adobe, it's much bigger - sadly, time will show all this in the end."
'FUD' from wikipedia:
"Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a sales or marketing strategy of disseminating negative (and vague) information on a competitor's product. The term originated to describe disinformation tactics in the computer hardware industry and has since been used more broadly. FUD is a manifestation of the appeal to fear."
I realize that your post, or those that you pointed to were not disseminating 'negative' comments about a competitor's (Adobe) product, however...
In this case, the 'FUDness' comes from you remaining vague about your (Microsoft's) product that you've 'heard about, but can't talk about' in the context of talking / comparing about a competitor's product.
That said, I appreciate that there is a notion of transparency which, in this example, might be construed as a flavor of FUDness, if you see what I mean.
I think I'm asking a genuine question of you (the balance between FUD and tranparency"), and not looking for a fight :-)
In light of the vagueness about the product in question, I would call it vaporware (in respect to the overall goal) instead of FUD: neither post contain fear or doubt and induce only a certain uncertainty (due to the vagueness) in the reader, not the writer.
Bjorn - I think you're right, FUD is the wrong word perhaps.
Allow me to retort ;)
I wanted to say what i've seen, but obviously can't because my butt would get hauled before the MSFT firing squad for leaking stuff I can't talk about that kind of thing.
Yet, I wanted to express the notion that although all the kids are picking a fight with Microsoft and swearing on their bibles that we are done, the old days are gone blah blah, the parts I was shown in terms of how all these moving parts all connect together, it hit me "damn, these guys are smart, would never of thought of that" notion.
I kind of wanted to express this but of course because I can't give the details away, the best i can do is tell you 've seen the promise land and try and describe it. If i'm wrong, well where's the harm? if i'm right? well you can say "thanks Scott for giving me the early heads up".
Oh darn those competitors if they weren't around i could give you the secret keys to the wonker factory we call Redmond ;) hehe.
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft - No umpa lumpas were killed in the making of Blend, just some were lost is all.