2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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FUD
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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/fuhd/ , n. Defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own
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company: FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people
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instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering
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[Amdahl] products. The idea, of course, was to persuade them to go with safe
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IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was
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traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to
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people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of
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competitors' equipment or software. See IBM. After 1990 the term FUD was
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associated increasingly frequently with Microsoft , and has become
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generalized to refer to any kind of disinformation used as a competitive
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weapon. [In 2003, SCO sued IBM in an action which, among other things,
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alleged SCO's proprietary control of Linux. The SCO suit rapidly became
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infamous for the number and magnitude of falsehoods alleged in SCO's
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filings. In October 2003, SCO's lawyers filed a memorandum in which they
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actually had the temerity to link to the web version of this entry in
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furtherance of their claims. Whilst we appreciate the compliment of being
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treated as an authority, we can return it only by observing that SCO has
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become a nest of liars and thieves compared to which IBM at its historic
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worst looked positively angelic. Any judge or law clerk reading this should
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surf through to my collected resources on this topic for the appalling
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details.
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