Get the Facts had a long and controversial role in Microsoft’s battle against open-source software vendors. Recently, it came to light that Microsoft tried to influence some of the analysts it hired to perform studies in 2002 comparing Windows and Linux to portray Microsoft offerings in a more favorable light. Microsoft’s whole policy of sponsoring analysts to conduct studies comparing its products to open-source ones — which many company observers believed would naturally show Microsoft products and strategies to be superior — had been a bone of contention since the site launched at the start of this decade.
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