Comments on: Techcrunch and Microsoft: Two WTF? moments…

By: Pablo

Pablo — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:46:32 +0000

Beyond the billions that Bill Gates has donated from his personal fortune, via his foundation to charity, “since 1983, Microsoft and its employees have given more than $2.5 billion in cash, services and software”.

From: http://www.csrwire.com/press/press_release/2512...

That seems reasonably responsible to me.

By: Dan Thornton

Dan Thornton — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:54:40 +0000

Cheers for the comment - and the link to Feeding America figures. I should have though to have a look on the charity website (but didn't as I was writing using wifi on the train to work and it's painfully bad sometimes!)

I'd agree that some money is better than nothing, but to question whether there's any marketing benefit? It's part of a big promotion for their new internet browser, and will have been planned and discussed as part of their marketing plan.

Compared to the money being spent to promote Bing, or the good work that Bill Gates has done for charity, it's pretty tiny.

(Just for the record, I'm generally pro MS - I'm most at home with Windows, I have a general dislike of Macs, and I'm an Xbox fanboy (original and 360!) )

By: armchairtheorist

armchairtheorist — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:51:27 +0000

There is no false advertising or any deception here. Microsoft is simply using the numbers that Feeding America provide themselves:

http://feedingamerica.org/faces-of-hunger/hunge...

From their own math:

25$ donated = 175 meals = 7 meals per $1 donated

$1.15 donated = 8.05 meals

Whether Microsoft is being a “cheapskate” or not is entirely subjective, but my take is that $1 million donated to help combat hunger is still better than $0 donated. If there is any marketing benefit gained from that, I'm sorry – they earned it.

IMO, it’s “articles” like that one and writers like MG Siegler that make TechCrunch more of a tabloid than an actual news source.

By: Sanity

Sanity — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:47:08 +0000

The Techcrunch article is getting blasted beyond belief. It looks like you jumped on the wrong side of this one. It's TC that is getting the bad PR. The only ones siding with TC are already MS haters anyway.