Sunday, May 02, 2004


Skip If You’re Bored By Syndication Politics


I originally pointed this out in the linkbar, but Isofarro and Phil Rignalda do such a beautiful job of eviscerating the last few days’ full-court anti-Atom disinformation campaign in the comments of this post that I had to point to it in a real entry.


:: Dave Walker 10:29 (EST/EDT) [+]

:: [/tech/computers/internet]
:: tags:

:: Comments (2)

Comments:

Citizen Keith wrote:

Title: FUD?

Date:

Response:
So, what does FUD stand for?
d.w. wrote:

Title:

Date:

Response:

FUD stands for “Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt”. It’s a common debating tactic in technology fields to disparage a competitor’s technology with vague accusations of incompatibility, technical flaws, or by saying “we’ve got something twice as good that we’ll be shipping any day now”, without actually having anything to back it up. The idea is that you can “freeze” the potential market until you can bring your own superior monetary resources to bear and crush your competition.

It’s generally acknowledged that IBM invented the technique in their mainframe heyday, and Microsoft perfected it in the 80’s. (Ironically, one of the most prominent victims was IBM’s OS/2, which was a victim of a particularly well-played FUD campaign from Microsoft.)

Here’s the Jargon File entry.



Then a man said: Speak to us of Expectations. He then said: If a man does not see or hear the waters of the Jordan, then he should not taste the pomegranate or ply his wares in an open market. If a man would not labour in the salt and rock quarries then he should not accept of the Earth that which he refuses to give of himself. Such a man would expect a pear of a peach tree. Such a man would expect a stone to lay an egg. Such a man would expect Sears to assemble a lawnmower. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit"