On those free Ferrari laptops…

Though not directly to do with CRM, this blogger feels obliged to cover the computing-world story that’s slowly accumulating more and more comment than any other story today: The Acer Ferrari notebooks given free to ninety lucky bloggers by Microsoft. From Australia to the ‘States, folks are lining up to comment and collect comments from those given the gift.

IT Wire in Australia may have been the first to morally weigh in on the story, with Stan Beer (An Australian named “Beer”? Classic!) stating in “A Ferrari a day won’t keep bad Vista blogs away” that the gift may represent something of a moral compromise from those lucky recipients who feel obliged to pen something positive about their Christmas prezzie. “What are the bloggers to do?” Beer rhetorically asks, answering immediately with “They should do whatever they want – as long as they keep their independence.”

Beer, who did not receive a Microsoft freebie, went on to write that many bloggers have limited financial resources (no kidding) and that “Receiving a free high performance laptop loaded with Microsoft’s best attempt to sway them toward Vista could make a great story, provided they do the right thing and disclose. If any happen to be committed Apple users, the chances are all Microsoft will receive for its trouble is an unfavourable review comparing Vista to Mac OS X.”

APC Magazine’s Dan Warne was even more extreme on the moral gray area probed by Microsoft with the promotion. Warren leads his article “Microsoft sends Ferrari to bloggers” with the riddle “When is a bribe not a bribe?” and goes onto to speak of the psychological game “corporate schmoozers” enact with journalists playing at “objectivity.”

Warne cites the “laws of reciprocity” (link his) as lying at the heart of the oncoming positive review problem, writing that said law “make us humans want to do something nice in return. Like glossing over deficiencies in their product when making a purchasing recommendation to their company, or, in the case of journalists, looking on the bright side when writing a product review (for fear of endangering future freebies).”

Warne even calls out laptop recipient Brandon LeBlanc of the blog “MS Tech Today” for proclaiming that “During the holidays I’ll be busy playing with my new laptop – the Acer Ferrari 5000. Yup, I traded in my Dell XPS 1710 for a little something different.” That’s the entire entry for December 23rd.

Notice anything missing? No? How about LeBlanc stating that he’d received the laptop as a gift? LeBlanc later backtracked, taking “full responsibility” for not mentioning this fact, an omission which got him labeled a sellout by blog readers. LeBlanc wrote five days later that he’d “intended to fully disclose where this laptop came from and its purpose in a upcoming post … Also, being that it was Christmas, I was a bit swamped.” LeBlanc later gets more uppity and finally actually gets down to doing some review-type stuff.

Self-professed techophobe Long Zheng is informally keeping track of all ninety winners in his blog “I Started Something,” seemingly in-the-know with several recipients. Zheng enthuses that “Assuming it doesn’t use Sony batteries, this laptop blows everything out of the water. It retails for a hot $2,299. But if you write about Microsoft, they might even give you one for free. Is it ethical? Probably not. Is it worth something to hard-working sweat and tears bloggers? Hell yeah.”

You go, Long! Zheng has not yet received one of the laptops, but reports that he will and “I intend to accept it, open it, and drool at it.”

Some of the ninety winners and their comments include the following.

Scott Beall, “Laughing Squid.” After reporting his surprise at receiving the thing and speculating why, Beall wrote on December 26th, “I’ll report back later on once I’ve had a chance to setup the laptop, configure Windows Vista and play around with a it a bit. Hey, maybe Apple will send me a MacBook with Leopard for a side-by-side comparison. Yeah, right.” Beall has promised to auction off the laptop and donate the proceeds to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Mauricio Freitas, “Freitasm.” Freitas has commented since December 10, when he was informed he’d be receiving the Ferrari. At that time, he wrote “what a machine.” This blogger may or may not have received the now extremely belated Xmas gift, but he did recount a pretty funny encounter with DHL.

Mitch Denny, “Notgardner.” Denny provides a nice substantial review of the machine in his entry entitled “Ferrari 1000: The Windows Experience Index” in which he compares his free toy to the Fujitsu LifeBook T4210 and the Dell Lattitude D820.

Zen, “The Tao of Zen: Zen’s HeavenGames blog.” Zen reported on day two of his use of the Ferrari in “A funny thing happened on the way to Vista x64 land” that “The laptop’s rock solid, Vista’s Aero glass interface looks slick, and Vista’s security mechanisms are so tight that it wouldn’t install drivers for any of my gadgets I’m trying to plug into the system. Well, okay, that last one is an exaggeration, but it’s frustrating that none of my devices work with 64-bit Vista due to a lack of drivers for 64-bit Vista.”

Barb Bowman, “Barb’s Connected World.” Barb’s post of December 29th is entitled “It’s All Good,” and that pretty much sums up this technophile’s review of the machine. However, she does note the 64-bit problem that Zen brought up.

Naturally, also commenting on the whole wacky party was at least one Windows Vista representative. Aaron Coldiron wrote responding to Zheng’s newsbreaking entry on “I Started Something”:

“…Yes, Windows Vista and AMD sent out review computers to bloggers. Why? Because we believe in the power of community, we believe in our product, and we are partnering with AMD to give bloggers the best hardware experience we can.

“I understand the concerns on ethics, and I share them. We have been up front that these are review PCs, and we encourage bloggers to disclose that…

“…while I hope you will blog about your experience with the PC, you don’t have to. Also, you are welcome to send the machine back to us after you are done playing with it, or you can give it away on your site, or you can keep it. My recommendation is that you give it away on your site…"

Finally, Coldiron concludes with "We want to be fully transparent about what we are doing here."

Great. Just one question: How does CRM Chump get one of these bad boys the next time Microsoft decides to preemptively thank the little people?