fostel@ncsu.UUCP (08/05/83)
I just read a bit of news about some company selling products, likely
to UNIX based organizations among others; the idea was hard to miss:
I will certainly avoid buying stuff from them, but I wonder, as we all
should, what that company, or more particularly, its lawyers, might have
to say about such claims of poor quality, imminant collapse.
Etc. If the statement is true, of course, one feels that the writer has
the weight of Common Law tradition, if not an adequate counsel; what if
the criticism is severe enough to have noticable effect on the vendor?
What if it was, perhaps an exageration inspired by swarms of bugs in the
night and an empty coffee pot? The embossed letter with the stuffy
wording from the companies legal staff could be the start of a personal
nightmare. (Of course, I prefer not to think that the critic might be
employed by a competitor ...)
Ok legal jocks. Whats the word? Can we flame in peace? Has anyone
ever gotten in trouble? Does electronic mail carry the quality of
witness verbal or sighned written comminucations needed to stand up
in court? In any event, try to be mindful of possible trouble.
----GaryFostel----gordonl@microsoft.UUCP (Gordon Letwin) (08/06/83)
I'm glad that this issue is getting some discussion; I've always felt that there was too much unsubstantated bad-mouthing on USENET; often it comes from commercial rivals of the liabled company. Whats worse, most of the time folks involved in "competitive badmouthing" don't disclose their competitive relationship to the folks they're so blithly badmouthing. With regards to legal issues, I have it on very good authority (from one who lost just such a suit) that the TRUTH of the statements dosen't matter - all the company has to do is show that they were DAMAGED and they've got you by the short hairs. For example, if they can get a customer to admit that they bought elsewhere because they read a USENET article which badmouthed the company's product then "thats all she wrote". I suspect that a lot of company lawyers would pee their pants if they saw the things that their employees are sending out over the net... a damaged company would probably sue both the employee and the employer, just for the fun of it. For ethical reasons, regardless of the legal ones, Microsoft never discusses competitors over the net, except in the most minimal terms: "company X has a product Y." We don't talk about what the product does, is claimed to do, or its strengths and weaknesses. We sometimes see articles asking for info on competing products; we're naturally experts on their strong and weak points, I might even claim that we can give more accurate info then the product's producers. We never do this, though, because we realize that the competitive situation makes it impossible for us to be unbiased. Further, when we discuss our OWN products we always make our professional affiliation very very clear - its important that readers be aware that the kudos (or brickbats!) are comming from someone who is very knowledgable, but very likely biased. Sorry this ran on so long... I think its an issue that people MUST address, or it won't be long before a few folks are receiving some very classy, very nasty letters in the mail. Right now anybody that can spell "computer" can have a growing company, but when the markets mature and companys start falling out people will be looking for things to blame... Gordon Letwin Microsoft Corp.