arghyle

This story kept growing yesterday and all sorts of interesting facts and opinions are coming out of the woodwork. The most interesting post I read was by Marshall Kirkpatrick who tells us that Microsoft asked for the laptop back now the the situation has become a PR nightmare. From the post:

Marshall,

No good deed goes unpunished, right? You may have seen that other bloggers got review machines as well. Some of that coverage was not factual. As you write your review I just wanted to emphasize that this is a review pc. I strongly recommend you disclose that we sent you this machine for review, and I hope you give your honest opinions. Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding of our intentions I’m going to ask that you either give the pc away or send it back when you no longer need it for product reviews.

Thanks for your understanding, and happy reviewing,

Aaron ***

This is confirmed over at Not Gartner.

So it looks like Microsoft is issuing a mea culpa with this request that bloggers either send the laptop back or give it away on their site. The giveaway option is especially interesting because a good deal of this outrage that we have seen against Microsoft is due to people’s jealousy and why someone else would receive a notebook and they wouldn’t. There have been a lot of protests and some pretty scathing comments.

Personally I don’t have a problem with what is going on here, for the most part. Big companies like Microsoft and AMD need exposure not just from blunt tools- like huge marketing campaigns and Super Bowl commercials- but also from viral and grassroots sources- like hardware websites and blogs. In order to test a product thoroughly you can’t be worried about breaking it or returning it in factory condition so companies let reviewers keep products sometimes. In my experience companies don’t let reviewers keep notebooks, especially not expensive ones, but in theory this is no different from a company letting a reviewer keep the memory, computer case, or mouse they review.

Aside from jealousy I think some readers/commenters are so angry because they see this as compromising the blogs. This would be the case because most blogs, especially small ones, are not a hardware review site or tech magazine (etc.) they are just an outlet for a single person’s thoughts and experiences. When people find out that Microsoft/AMD has been influencing the blog or contributing to it in some way then the trust they once placed in it can be diminished. When you go to CNET or PC Magazine or Tom’s Hardware or anything like that, it clear that the manufacturers are providing the products and you trust the writers not to be influenced so it is not a big deal. This is not the case with a blog that might get only a few hundred people a day and runs no advertising- people probably see this a being a someone who is an enthusiast and an independent voice and such a substantial gift from a company may raise a red flag with the readers.

Edit: Here is the link to my first post.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS