Interesting read if you a chance. Microsoft could be opening itself up for scrutiny under the federal anti-trust statutes here; when you own the kind of market share that MS does, targeting one competitor as specifically as this can be viewed as predatory practice - and that'll bring the feds down on MS faster than all the stuff they've done before. I'm NOT a MS hater, although I do despise their penchant for burying software in Windows that adversely affects competitors' applications. Being a local company, I hope they have much success tomorrow and beyond. But overzealousness like this could bring a fatal blow from Washington if they don't watch out.
I don't see this being a legal issue at the moment because there will only be a few stores by year's end. So we're talking about maybe a dozen or so people. Will be interesting to see if the additional monetary investment in staff will pay off. MS has certainly come back strong with Windows 7. And they are winning in the value market, as Apple products are still a four-figure investment.
This is not that uncommon is business. When I worked for Footlocker Inc., Finish Line and Footaction were constantly and agressiely trying to recruit our Managers to their stores. That said, I'm not a fan of such tactics. I believe it was Don Sutton who once said "Loyalty? Hell yeah, I'm the most loyal player money can buy!"
I know. I recently put myself through yet another rebuild (ugh) because I just couldn't bear to part with the $$$ to buy an equivalently-powered Apple computer. It's not an uncommon practice at all; but where you get in trouble is if you own as large a share of the market as MS does, and you specifically target a weaker competitor - that's precisely what the federal anti-trust laws are meant to prevent. It's called predatory practice, and if MS were to eventually be found guilty of it, they would pay triple the awarded damages to Apple.
I don't want to start this into a Mac vs PC thread, but I agree... that is the most BS line I've ever heard from a company.