Platform Evangelism 419
An anonymous submitter writes "James Plamondon, a former Microsoft employee is writing a book on Technological Evangelism at Microsoft. He's posted the first chapter, "Evangelism is War."
Robert Scoble, a current Microsoft Evangelist doesn't like the metaphor, but Micah Alpern is concerned Microsoft could use similar strategies against Macromedia Flash."
Re:If MS were to use such strategies, would anyone (Score:3, Informative)
Mozilla Firebird Plug (Score:4, Informative)
Does CrazyBrowser or Opera do something similar?
Evangelism (Score:4, Informative)
I remember during the Team OS/2 vs. ClubWin wars on USENET there was a drive within Microsoft to rename the position to "Technical Advocate". It failed because some product managers (not project managers) argued that "advocate" wasn't an agressive enough term. Sigh.
By and large though, Microsoft evangelists tend to be nice people (like Scoble, who used to organize the Fawcette [fawcette.com] industry conferences for a long time). Much different from sales drones and even most enterprise support reps.
Parts of Flash are open. (Score:4, Informative)
This gives Flash, or at least the SWF format, some serious leverage.
Re:Mozilla Firebird Plug (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone catch the statement in the footnotes ?? (Score:5, Informative)
*snip*
[2] Recently, our competitors have added âoepoliticalâ to this list. Political actions result in law, which is backed up by force. They may come to regret educating us of the power of political means. */snip*
I guess this means that MS has decided to start playing the political game wich it's own panache now. I believe the recent settlement with the government is only outcome #1 we'll see from this new activity. I wouldn't be surprised if they had some legislation brewing that would grant them some type of legalized monopoly. After all, if he who pays the piper calls the tune MS is in a position to control the Congressional Playlist for many years to come
-A.M.
oh come on (Score:2, Informative)
I agree that Flash is evil, but that doesn't justify skewing facts.
Re:Flash is dead (Score:5, Informative)
I am not saying SVG doesn't have it's points. But don't knock Flash. I hate to burst your bubble, but Flash is far from dead.
OpenSWF Link (Score:5, Informative)
I'm fairly sure there's an open source viewer and some open source creation tools. I've read about some on-the-fly generated SWF like for charts and graphs. The links should on the site somewhere.
This is one of those things I'll figure I'll get around to playing with someday.
Re:Fight Club (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If MS were to use such strategies, would anyone (Score:4, Informative)
I'm a Linux user myself, and I've modded down my share of pro-MS comments, but on the basis that they either 1) have no clue what they're talking about, or 2) are highly logic impaired. I'm talking about basic logic, not judgements on opinions.
There are many pro-MS comments that I agree with. Unlike some of the zealots (most who will get over it, eventually), I understand that Windows has its place and advocate Windows to anyone who doesn't:
1) Dislike Microsoft solutions
2) Want to explore their computer
3) Want to configure everything in detail