Lotusphere 2006: "No More Microsoft FUD Bullshit"

Yesterday was Business Partner Development Day at Lotusphere 2006. Perhaps the most memorable quote came from Surjit Chana, VP, Marketing and Partners, Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Software (see left). He said that he was sick and tired of the Microsoft FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) "Bullshit" that keeps getting generated and publicized as if it was fact. He personally committed that he and his office will respond to any Microsoft generated FUD with 24 hours of any incident. It will be interesting to see if he is able to keep this promise.

I talked with him after the session about last week's FUD incident and the reaction of the blogging community that forced Microsoft to pull their latest FUD offering from their website. He wants to meet with Paul Mooney, who carefully analyzed the offering and exposed the inherent FUD-based weaknesses and claims in it. One other thing that impressed me was that within an hour or so after speaking with Surjit, I received a call from Antony Satyadas, the Chief Competitive Officer in the IBM Software Group (WPLC), and we had a 45 minute follow-up discussion later in the day. In all, a very good, fruitful discussion.

For organizations that are trying to implement a strong IT Governance structure in their organizations, they need to recognize FUD for what it is and not make strategic decisions based on it. This is not always easy, but due diligence and obligations to stakeholders/shareholders demands it. And as Carl Tyler opined, perhaps in the case of Redmond-based FUD, we should call it "Fear, Uncertainty and Deceit".

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