by Playfuls Staff |
1st January 2007
Last week, Microsoft and AMD decided to keep bloggers informed
about new Microsoft’s OS, Windows Vista. The companies sent Acer Ferrari [more] laptops to select bloggers who are covering in their blogs subjects related to
technology or other topics that could be affected by Windows Vista, such as photography
or online video. The laptops are valued at more than $2,200 each.
According to media reports, the first blogger who reported
about these gifts was Long Zheng, an Australian blogger.
Soon after other reports emerged a controversy has started. While
some in the blogging community called it a bribe, others believed it was OK to
receive the expensive gift, as long as the blogger disclosed receiving it.
According to a Microsoft statement issued last week, the
company “sent out machines loaded with Windows Vista to bloggers to encourage
them to experience the product and to solicit their valuable feedback, offering
full disclosure that no editorial commentary was expected as a condition of
acceptance,"
Microsoft disclosed the fact that the recipients were told
they could keep the computers, give them away, or send them back.
"Microsoft’s official position is that once these
bloggers are done experiencing the product, they can choose what they want to
do with them," a Microsoft spokeswoman told the New York Times.
The consumer version of Windows Vista, the latest OS from
Microsoft, is set to be launched at the end of this month, after in November 2006,
Microsoft introduced Windows Vista for business.
