Yesterday, I ridiculed ChannelWeb's attempt to invent a controversy, documenting how a reporter (??) there manufactured a story about the supposed impending release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 and then wrote a contrived follow-up fallaciously accusing Microsoft of "stoking the fires" of the controversy by supposedly posting a suspicious document about the release to its Web site. It was, and is, all completely untrue. The controversy, such as it is, was manufactured solely by the ChannelWeb reporter.
Well, he's not done. Despite being thoroughly discredited, this guy wrote another follow-up yesterday. And he's still up to the same old tricks.
Call it a Hamlet moment for the PC industry, filled with political intrigue and machinations worthy of the great Shakespeare play: to wait for XP SP3 or move to Vista now that Microsoft has released Vista SP1? Or in other words: "To XP, or not to XP?" That is the question.
For you it is, anyway.
It's a question that is burning up the blogosphere with some speculating that Microsoft has delayed XP SP3.
Let's be clear here. It's not "burning up the blogosphere." This is a non-issue, invented by you, and you alone. It's not a question. It's not a concern. It's an invention. By you. Microsoft has not "delayed" XP SP3.
With many in the blogosphere speculating that Microsoft could release the final version of XP SP3 this week...
Who is speculating this exactly? Aside from your totally baloney story last week about the supposed impending release of XP SP3, no one has been speculating about this at all. Microsoft has been saying for several months that it will ship XP SP3 in Q2 2008. That starts in April. End of story. For the rest of the world.
From here on out, the rest of the article is devoted to Vista SP1 for some reason. Put another way, this guy has invented the news (tail wagging the dog, as they say) and then had the temerity to write two follow-up stories in which he has claimed, respectively, that Microsoft is the one stoking the controversy and that the blogosphere is now "burning up" because Microsoft has supposedly delayed XP SP3. Neither is true. Both are made up, by him.
Wow.
I can't wait to hear "Airline Travel"'s take on this one. They're going to be outraged.
But seriously, ChannelWeb. Why are you publishing these invented news stories?