Point of sale material for staff selling the new range of Windows 7 PCs to combat buyers' interest in Linux has been leaked online.
The materials, sent to staff at Best Buy, are to be studied by staff who earn the right to buy a copy of Windows 7 for $10. One staff member has leaked the material to computing blog Overclock.net.
"So I work at Best Buy (insert boos and hisses) and I was doing some Microsoft ExpertZone training," the source said.
"Well, the new one for Windows 7 allows me to get a $10 retail copy of Windows 7 after completing the courses. So I figured I'd get it and sell it for a quick buck. Now, during my training modules, a 'Linux vs Windows 7' module appeared."
The training materials make a number of statements that are being strongly disputed by the open source community.
For example, Microsoft says that Linux systems have poor compatibility with printers, scanners and multimedia devices and don't support many games or popular messaging services.
It also asserts that Linux systems are difficult to maintain and update with software patches, and that Linux tutorials are almost non-existent.
Most contentiously of all, the materials state that Windows is, from a security standpoint, safer for users than Linux systems. The rationale for this is that users can't set parental locks on Linux systems and that security updates may not appear quickly.
Incidentally, today's
Patch Tuesday from Microsoft included fixes for TCP vulnerabilities that were identified over two years ago and published last year.
09 Sep 2009
