The fact that you have to question the integrity of someone who says something positive about Microsoft in an anti-Microsoft post, while people defending Apple and Google and piling on MS in every other story get a free pass, is very telling about the nature of the community and it's biases. (As if it wasn't evident already in the story selection and comment moderation).

Lets hunt down this person who doesn't seem to fit in our community! Okay I am kidding about that, but yeah, the closest I ever was to Microsoft was when I interviewed for Amazon at Seattle. I've never directly or indirectly received a penny from them and I don't own any stock either(and never did).

First of all, the ad doesn't really qualify as an ad, right now it's just a video uploaded to YouTube and thus gets minimal exposure. Microsoft is known to make weird and funny videos for no purpose really(it is part of their company culture), and I found the videos mildly amusing, especially the Gmail man one. None of them are particularly well-made, or are likely to swing people.

People who make purchasing decision are knowledgeable enough about slimy MS salesmen to fall for any of this. I don't know if MS got sore after losing some big contracts and felt that the customers were misled into choosing Google apps inspite of some disadvantages and made this video, but I sure don't find them reprehensible enough to lose sleep over about which multi billion corporation is more right. I just don't see why everyone gets into a hissy fit and seem to lose all sense of proportion when it gets to MS, but other companies get a free pass for similar tactics.This is the reason I make the comments I do. We need Bing if only to keep Google honest and innovative (atleast till DDG or the next thing picks up).

Did you know Winsupersite.com is shadowbanned on HN? I wonder what crime it committed in the eyes of HN'ers, go visit the site and tell me if you can discern why it can be possibly be completely banned from ever showing up on HN. It's one of the only Windows enthusiast sites on the Internet which comes out with breaking Microsoft news and leaks. Maybe that's reason enough for people here to banish it from visitors seeing it :) Paul Thurott is a respected author, blogger and Windows enthusiast and even has a weekly podcast on TWiT with The community seems to be more spiteful towards anything MS than MS towards Google!!! :)

I would love to be a fly on the wall when Google salesmen push their products, do you think they would be completely honest about informing the customer about the disadvantages mentioned in the video? If so, if they lose a sale because of doing that, would you be okay with Google disciplining them not to do that next time? Or would they just say, "Hey, that's fine, add some more points to the list of our disadvantages compared to Office for the next client call".

That is what I meant by sales is a dirty job, akin to a lawyer or a used car salesmen, it's just the nature of the job to bolster yourself and slam the competition.

>They blew an opportunity to brag about the superior features of Office and instead spent it slandering a competitor in the most hamfisted manner imaginableThey blew an opportunity to brag about the superior features of Office and instead spent it slandering a competitor in the most hamfisted manner imaginable

What? They talk positively all the time. For example see the other videos in their YouTube account, you wouldn't know would you. That's not news, really and those videos don't get many views. So I don't see a missed opportunity here. You're hyping this up as if this was a 2 minute Super Bowl ad. Or maybe it was one and I missed it and the HN'ers watched it.