["Craig Flannagan" <craigfla at microsoft.com>] Microsoft Canada would like to visit your user group

[cbbrowne-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org]

On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 20:00:25 EST, the world broke into rejoicing as
Fraser Campbell <fraser-eicrhRFjby5dCsDujFhwbypxlwaOVQ5f at public.gmane.org>  said:
> On Thursday 25 March 2004 19:41, Sidney Shapiro wrote:
> 
> > > Canada would like to visit your user group
> > >
> > > So, should we say yes?
> >
> > What do they want to discuss?
> 
> Yes, I think we must know what the topic/agenda is.  
> 
> If they promise to not show a single Microsoft video during their
> presentation then I would consider attending ... I went to the
> Microsoft keynote at the Wowgao conference and I simply couldn't stand
> it, within 2 minutes I was feeling physically nauseated.

> Right now I can't think of anything interesting coming out of
> Microsoft but perhaps they'll have a surprise for us.  A demo of
> Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer and some other Microsoft
> applications running under X would be of interest.

It begs the question, of course, of why _we_ would want to offer this
vendor our "venue" to publicize their products to our members.

Historically, I have commonly found "vendor presentations" to be the
_worst_ sorts of LUG talks.  

- A major "dud" was LinuxCare, where they basically sent one of their
sales people who presented what amounted to their sales pitch to the
group (not in Toronto).  This was of less than zero value to the many
dozing hobbyists that weren't even faintly interested in buying the
product.

- A Smalltalk vendor was offering a couple free copies of their
environment, and pushed their pitch of "dynamic programming" as if they
were truly unique.  Franz and Symbolics would presumably disagree.  The
talk was interesting enough, but wildly biased, and I doubt they got any
sales.

- Caldera did a talk on Volution, their proprietary system
administration tool intended for "enterprise administration."  Again,
they didn't get any sales, and people got very bored.

I would find it quite remarkable for a Microsoft talk to be of any
value; they are vastly more oriented to sales than practically any other
enterprise on the planet.

While the idea of getting an hour of heckling in may seem entertaining,
I can imagine better ways to use a TLUG meeting.
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