A few posts ago I was replying to some FUD from a new competitor of VMware’s called Marathon. You can read the first post and second post on the blog. These two posts generated a lot of comments. A few of the comments were from a poster called TopGun. In his first comment he leaves the following at the end:
“And I agree with the previous poster, my site was one of those that were done do to the license “foul up”. Not sure I’d want to trust my most critical apps to this software, especially version 1.0.”
I want to say it really is bad that people got screwed up by what’s called the “time bomb”. If TopGun were an actual customer I would feel even worse. The only problem is he’s not a customer. He works for Stratus – another VMware FT competitor (sort of).
How do I know this? Simple – logs. Let me share something with those that don’t know. Whenever you comment on a blog the IP address you are currently using gets logged. This actually works for most email as well. Here’s a screenshot from my TypePad blog:
Next stop is the IP Whois search engine to see who owns 198.97.41.12. The results won’t surprise you.
Personally I like Stratus. Like I said in my comments already I know plenty of customers using their hardware today. Why they choose to come in here anonymously and start throwing around fake comments is rediculous. It’s clearly stated in my discalimers that I work for VMware. When I comment on other blogs and sites I put in my full name and a link back to my blog which states that I’m from VMware. Apparently the two competitors VMware has in the FT space must be running really scared since one (Marathon) just outright lies on their site and blog and the other (Stratus) posts anonymous lies on blogs. Tisk, tisk. Guys, time to start improving your products, selling on your own merits, and using your own names. In the day and age of computers it is way too easy to find out who you really are. Not to mention the fact that I used to do security audits for a living so I know my way around cyberspace.
One last thing to say – TopGun, you’re now banned from my blog. I’m leaving your existing comments up as evidence of the facts but you’re not allowed to comment here anymore.
DISCLAIMER: I work for VMware as a Systems Engineer. I have worked in the virtualization industry for over 6 years. The views and opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not represent views of my employer or of anyone else. This blog is written on my own time and with my own energy. I am not commenting in this blog on behalf of my employer or anyone else. If you would like official statements about VMware you can contact my employer’s PR firm. I always welcome and encourage open and constructive conversations and will not block any comments from appearing on this blog other than obvious SPAM or threatening hate mail.
Tags: VMware
September 25th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Nice Mike! This is like when Parallels employees were giving VMware Fusion 1-star reviews on Amazon, while giving Parallels 5-star reviews–very classy.
What made it so ridiculous, beyond the lying, was the fact that the two guys who did it used their “real” Amazon names…so all it took was a little LinkedIn searching to see that they were public relations people at Parallels.
What was worse, when we confronted Parallels management about it, and offered them the chance to make it right, provided they note that we had brought it to them, even management lied and in their “mea culpa” blog post, claimed that *they* had found it.
I’m all for healthy competition, and getting fired up for your product, but don’t insult the market…it tends to bite you back.
Team Fusion blog post on the original “Amazon-gate” Parallels Fake Reviews kerfuffle: http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/2008/04/learning-from-y.html
And this is the Parallels blog post that Ben Rudolph changed like five times since it went up originally, as we continued to pin him down on slimy weasel wording: http://parallelsvirtualization.blogspot.com/2008/03/customer-reviews.html
This is the sort of thing that blogs are great for: creating a permanent record of bad behavior, such that
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
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February 4th, 2009 at 12:58 am
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June 19th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
[...] conversation to throw more mud on the situation under the name of “Top Gun”. A little detective work and it was easy to see who was behind the [...]