9/5/2007 -- Just to refresh my memory and make certain I wasn't misinterpreting anything, I yanked three current marketing textbooks from the shelf and turned to their discussions on types of advertising.

In addition to reinforcement advertising, reminder advertising and a few others, there's comparative advertising, which -- according to the 14th edition of Marketing by William M. Pride and O.C. Ferrell -- is "advertising that compares two or more brands on the basis of one or more product characteristics." The book goes on to say, "Often, the brands promoted through comparative advertisements have low market shares and are compared with products that have the highest market shares in the product category."

What made me pull the textbooks were the ads that Microsoft has been running lately comparing Windows Server 2003 to Linux. The full-page ads are made to look like the front of a newspaper called The Highly Reliable Times, and have banners that say things like "State of Illinois Votes for Windows Server Over Linux."

The way the ads read, you'd think that Linux is the market leader and little Microsoft is trying to shed light on the fact that its OS is more reliable. The one focusing on Illinois quotes Paul Campbell, the former director of the Illinois Department of Central Management Services -- apparently the current director didn't weigh in -- as saying, "Part of the reason we felt we could rely on Windows Server is that there's a great roadmap for the platform. With Linux, there is no roadmap."

A roadmap? OK...

What does the 5th edition of Marketing: Real People, Real Choices by Michael R. Solomon, Greg W. Marshall and Elnora W. Stuart have to say about comparative advertising? In addition to pointing out that it's considered illegal in many countries, the book adds: "Comparative advertising is best for brands that have a smaller share of the market and for firms that can focus on a specific feature that makes them superior to a major brand."

I can certainly see why the lack of a "roadmap" would be a feature I'd want to harp on -- particularly if no one bothered to look at the nine-part "Windows-to-Linux Roadmap" that IBM posted a few years back.

Authors Louis E. Boone and David L. Kurtz mirror that sentiment in the 12th edition of their book Contemporary Marketing, and add:

Firms whose goods and services are not the leaders in their markets often favor comparative advertising, a promotional strategy that emphasizes advertising messages with direct or indirect comparisons to dominant brands in the industry. By contrast, market leaders seldom acknowledge in their advertising that competing products even exist.

This leaves two possibilities. The first is that Microsoft has chosen to ignore the rules of marketing and decided to run what it wants, when it wants, using ads of former department directors because it likes the way they look. The second is that Linux truly is winning the server war and Microsoft is acting the way any vendor that wants to attack the market leader would. I'm all a twitter as I contemplate the latter and wonder how long it'll be before a suitable roadmap exists.

LPI Tops 155,000 Exams
The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) has delivered over 155,000 vendor-neutral Linux exams since its establishment in 1999. This has led to the certification of over 47,000 people at the three levels currently offered (LPIC-1, LPIC-2 and LPIC-3).

To become certified at either of the lower two levels, a candidate must pass two exams, while LPIC-3 (launched earlier this year) requires only one additional exam.

More information about LPI and its certifications can be found at http://www.lpi.org.

Book of the Week: 'A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming'
Though it's going on 2 years old now, there still isn't a better shell book on the market than Mark G. Sobell's A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming. Focusing as it does on the topics given -- and not straying beyond them -- it's a useful book regardless of what distribution you're using, and one that will still be relevant several years from now. If you appreciate the beauty of being able to accomplish something quickly with a shell script, then this is the title for you.