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Topic: Microsoft

Microsoft's greatest controversies and biggest foul-ups

Summary: A run down of some of the most controversial decisions or actions by Microsoft, including some of their biggest mistakes to date.

Zack Whittaker

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Kin, the phone that never was, advertised in a way which apparently showed teenagers exchanging explicit photos of themselves and 'promoting' sexting -- a social craze amongst teenagers where they share sexually provocative text and picture messages amongst one another.

This caused instant outrage, and landed Microsoft in hot water. Consumer Reports was particularly focused with their statement, by claiming the Kin advertisements "comes uncomfortably close to advocating sexting".

The advert was pulled shortly after the news hit the web.

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For more on company controversies, check out Zack Whittaker's iGeneration column or for more on Google, visit the ZDNet All About Microsoft column.

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Topics: Microsoft, Google, Security, Windows

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8 comments
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  • RE: Microsoft's greatest controversies and biggest foul-ups

    "watching what people search for on google" is NOT copying google. It is relating a search term that a USER supplied with a site that the USER found interesting. It could just as easily have been amazon or yahoo or something else.

    One of many distinctions is that bing wouldn't have included all search results from the query, only the ones that user found relevant and clicked on.
    mcauthon
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft's greatest controversies and biggest foul-ups

      @mcauthon
      Indeed. Infact, I believe Bing even "copies" itself in this way :P.
      xnederlandx
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft's greatest controversies and biggest foul-ups

    Moronic.

    Missed the real stuff, what it focuses on is trivia.
    PMC-CON
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft's greatest controversies and biggest foul-ups

    Microsoft's even bigger stuff up. Deliberately punishing and ignoring those using and wanting to keep using XP and continuing to try and trumpet W7 market penetration while all the time 65% of the market hold onto XP for very good reasons. If I was a Microsoft shareholder I would be infuriated my company ignored that 65% client base and did zero to help that market share upgrade or benefit from technology improvements. Some of us remember when the promise of technology was to make our lives much simpler , less stressful and far less costly. I would love to see someone argue (on substance rather than opinion) that any of those objectives have been held true in Microsoft. The end user world will not buy what it is being forced down their throats just because its fuels Microsoft's bottom line. The product has to deliver what the market wants and W7 satisfies only the bleeding edge of the IT Market. The nuts and bolts IT Pro is unhappy and is losing interest in keeping Microsoft afloat and investors should be punishing Ballmer for completely turning his back on the established XP market base.<br><br>Ken<br>IT Diretcor<br>Melbourne<br>Australia
    ramnet@...
    Reply Vote

    • RE: Microsoft's greatest controversies and biggest foul-ups

      @ramnet@...

      I agree with everything you say from a <b>user's point of view.</b>

      That said, however, once you have the customer's $, then any additional expense is not financially rewarded.

      Remember, Microsoft and its hardware partners are in the business of <b>selling products. And the product they want to sell you is a new pc.</b>

      I got off the M$ upgrade cycle some 4+ years ago, and switched to Linux. Even though I own an 8 year old Dell, I still can run the latest Ubuntu (11.04 - Natty) with that old hardware. My machine originally was equipped with Win2K, which a previous owner upgraded to XP; will it ever run WindoZE 7? I seriously doubt it.

      So, from a stockholder's point of view, the faster you can obsolesce your product, the faster you can cause churn in not only your products, but all of the products your hardware and software partners are involved with. And that's the game!!!
      fatman65535
      Reply Vote

  • Yellow-dog journalism would be an improvement here.

    Quoting your own (ZDNet's) antique 2007 "comparison" of OS X and Windows XP merely continues the partisan tradition. How about pointing out how many vulnerabilities on Windows actively damaged user's systems compared with Macs? Oh yeah, one has BSD, the most rock-solid system in history? and the other still shows its CP/M, single-user, non-networked roots every time you look.

    I don't know why I (or anyone, really) even bother reading this site anymore.
    Jeff Dickey
    Reply Vote

    • RE: I don't know why I (or anyone, really) even bother ....

      @Jeff Dickey

      <b>For the amusement value!</b>

      Every time I see a post by a certain WindoZE fanboy taking pot shots at Linux; I can't help but laugh.
      fatman65535
      Reply Vote

  • RE: Microsoft's greatest controversies and biggest foul-ups

    How can any report of Microsoft mistakes leave out Zune? A huge disaster no matter how you dress it up.
    bethere@...
    Reply Vote
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