Am I the only one who got spam from Microsoft this morning, advertising Windows Server 2003 and Visual Studio .NET? I’m confused about where they got my e-mail address — I haven’t used a Microsoft product since 1999, and I’ve only been working for O’Reilly since the beginning of 2001. Also, what’s this crap?
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Are they really that desperate for business now that they have to join the ranks of porn peddlers, penny stock hucksters, herbal Viagra purveyors, and the sons and widows of ex-Nigerian strongmen?
Did you get spammed by Microsoft, too?
so did I
Funny, I was thinking the same thing. I haven't purchased a microsoft product since 1998 and don't use any of their software on a day to day basis.
I have no idea how they got my email address, unless some of the magazines I subscribe to sold it to them....
"Direct" mail
Spam reminds me of the early stages of the direct mail journey. There is a mass mailing mentality that knows that of the multitude of email messages a company sends out, a percentage will respond. 1% of 1 million is still a lot of names. (Then they own the name, too!) Now, a company can avoid the actual cost of the mail piece, postal fees, etc., too. Targeting will come later, much later.
Microsoft could have bought or traded for your name from any number of sources, I'll betcha. And as far as I know, there is no DMA (Direct Marketing Association) equivalent yet that will place your email address on a supression list. I'd love to know I'm wrong, though.
There is NO .NET for 64bit Windows2003 Server
Opps, should read
The Spam states
That's where the powerful combination of Visual Studio .NET 2003 and
Windows Server 2003 can help you get the job done. Visual Studio .NET
2003 is tightly integrated with Windows Server 2003 to help you deliver
solutions that give your business a competitive edge without the
traditional time-intensive development overhead. So you can do more with
less.
BUT The .NET Framework, ASP.NET and even the Common language runtime is not available in 64-bit versions of the Windows Server 2003 family
For all the talk of portability, Microsoft has not yet been able to port .NET to the 64bit Intel and AMD processors.
Mail Headers
It might be worth taking a look at the mail headers if the mail really came from Microsoft.
not by microsoft
But at the same time, I got a lot from their closest partners all-of-a-sudden. I think they are synchronizing marketing efforts. That is their strength, after all.
Clearly porting isn't.