Microsoft's TCO Tricks: Ancient but Important

This may be ancient history now, but it's important that people remember that Microsoft does not fight fair, as these old documents about the company's TCO campaign against GNU/Linux indicate:

The court evidence also gives a peek into the relationships large vendors like Microsoft have with research firms. In a different Nov. 3, 2002, message, Houston said that the company had been unable to convince any other major research company to do the TCO study, and specifically mentioned Gartner as one that turned down Microsoft's request.

"We approached Gartner about doing this study and they declined," said Houston. "They said it was because they didn't know that their model for TCO would work well with Linux. I privately wonder if they want to take on this debate."

And the month before, Houston wrote Johnson a message that intimated pressure had been put on IDC to tweak the report so it would put Microsoft in a better light. "I hate to put it like this, but at this point, IDC is done negotiating with us. We have moved them quite a bit already, but they are now holding the line, saying that if we want the names of their 'big' analysts on the report, this is it."