By now most of you have heard about the comments and opinions sold by Microsoft to Best Buy employees as “facts.” At best, what isn’t a flat out lie, is a matter of individual perspective. Sadly, Microsoft cannot seem to tell the two apart.
First there is the matter of compatibility. Much like notebooks built for Vista, desktop Linux also has notebooks built for that platform as well. In each case, those bearing the label of the platform they are designed for work like a champ. Well, at least the ones with the Ubuntu stickers do, anyhow. Vista stickers got Microsoft in some trouble during its initial release, but we’ll ignore that fact despite it instantly showing holes in Microsoft’s own credibility.
In the second graphic shown in the article linked above, we see the following text being sold as absolute fact. “Linux is easy to learn and will meet with customer expectations about the things they can do with their PC.” The provided answer to this according to Microsoft – myth. Because this depends on what the customer is actually doing, calling this a myth is simply untrue. While I would agree that Linux (even pre-installed) is not a match for everyone, to say that it is not a match for Best Buy customers is, at its very core, a half-truth at best. Each platform has advantages depending on the INDIVIDUAL need. For netbook users for instance, Linux is fantastic. But obviously if you are looking to run Microsoft software, VPN into a Microsoft shop and hope to spend some time developing stuff like Silverlight, clearly Windows would be the better choice.