I don't know about them, but at Microsoft unsupervised contact with
customers was discouraged. Unless you are a program manager, or have a
project referred by one, you mind your own business. That of course was
eleven years and more ago. I have recently asked questions in the MSN
discussion group, which is public and semi-sponsored by Microsoft, but you
never see anyone whom you can positively identify as an employee. They are
all "MVPs", which is a species of know-it-all that claims to have special
inside knowledge, but never deigns to name or reveal his sources.

Things were somewhat freer in the early days, and I remember Mac people
posting directly on Usenet, using their real names and company positions,
but Mr. Kiddie ---- at Microsoft and others put the damper on that. Now,
afaik, it all goes through pubic relations. Even the magazines have to
respect that, because they tend to get more reliable, albeit filtered,
information.

Earle

"L.W. (ßill) ------ III" <----------@***.net> wrote in message
news:43CC3415.88100614@***.net...
> Intel and Mac?
> God Bless America, Bill O|||||||O
> mailto:-------------------- http://www.----------.com/
>
> Earle Horton wrote:
> >
> > Maybe that's what's wrong with IBM. All their recent engineering is
based
> > on Usenet articles. ;^)
> >
> > Seriously, sure there are employees at Microsoft who are paid to monitor
> > newsgroups, sometimes as part of product testing, but you never see any
> > "official" utterances out of them. As far as "Personal" pages with
> > questionable content go, I am sure that is frowned upon at IBM too.
> >
> > Earle

 

I don't know about them, but at Microsoft unsupervised contact with
customers was discouraged. Unless you are a program manager, or have a
project referred by one, you mind your own business. That of course was
eleven years and more ago. I have recently asked questions in the MSN
discussion group, which is public and semi-sponsored by Microsoft, but you
never see anyone whom you can positively identify as an employee. They are
all "MVPs", which is a species of know-it-all that claims to have special
inside knowledge, but never deigns to name or reveal his sources.

Things were somewhat freer in the early days, and I remember Mac people
posting directly on Usenet, using their real names and company positions,
but Mr. Kiddie ---- at Microsoft and others put the damper on that. Now,
afaik, it all goes through pubic relations. Even the magazines have to
respect that, because they tend to get more reliable, albeit filtered,
information.

Earle

"L.W. (ßill) ------ III" <----------@***.net> wrote in message
news:43CC3415.88100614@***.net...
> Intel and Mac?
> God Bless America, Bill O|||||||O
> mailto:-------------------- http://www.----------.com/
>
> Earle Horton wrote:
> >
> > Maybe that's what's wrong with IBM. All their recent engineering is
based
> > on Usenet articles. ;^)
> >
> > Seriously, sure there are employees at Microsoft who are paid to monitor
> > newsgroups, sometimes as part of product testing, but you never see any
> > "official" utterances out of them. As far as "Personal" pages with
> > questionable content go, I am sure that is frowned upon at IBM too.
> >
> > Earle