Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Microsoft: ILoo No Hoax After All

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 04:53:25 -0400

Microsoft is the absolute WORST!

On again, Off again........................

Who is  Bill's "Spin Master"  ?????? Baghdad  Bob??

Click on the URL and check out the the picture......

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Microsoft: ILoo No Hoax After All
Tue May 13, 7:14 PM ET

By HELEN JUNG, AP Business Writer

SEATTLE - What's true with the iLoo? Microsoft Corp. and its public
relations firm changed their story — again — Tuesday about whether the
United Kingdom division had been developing an Internet-enabled portable
toilet.

On Monday, three representatives for the
software giant told news agencies, including The
Associated Press, that an April 30 news release
trumpeting the "iLoo" was a hoax and apologized
for "any confusion or offense."

But on Tuesday, the company reversed itself,
saying the iLoo was real but now has been killed.

"We jumped the gun basically yesterday in
confirming that it was a hoax, and in fact it was
not," said Lisa Gurry, MSN group product
manager. "Definitely, we're going to be taking a
good look at our communication processes
internally."

It's a public relations embarrassment for a
company famous for micromanaging news
releases, interviews and promotional events.

"It's definitely not how we like to do PR at
Microsoft," Gurry said.

The iLoo was described as a portable toilet equipped with a wireless (news -
web sites) keyboard and a height-adjustable plasma screen with high-speed
Internet access. Microsoft's MSN division was "in the process of converting
a portable loo to create a unique experience" in time for the summer festival
season, according to the release.

Several news organizations, including the AP, carried reports of the project.
An AP reporter specifically asked whether it was a hoax and was assured
last week by Microsoft, its Portland, Ore.-based PR firm Waggener Edstrom
and another PR firm in London, Red Consultancy, that the project was real.

On Monday, technology Web site CNET, based on a tip, wrote that the iLoo
was a hoax and quoted Microsoft spokesman Nouri Bernard Hasan as
saying, "I can confirm it was an April Fool's joke."

The AP and The Wall Street Journal also were told Monday by two company
spokeswomen that the iLoo was a fraud.

On Tuesday, though, Microsoft said it had relied on bad information from a
Microsoft employee in the United Kingdom who said it was a hoax, Gurry
said. After more talks with people in London, the company determined it
was a real project, after all.

The U.K. division likes to run clever and innovative marketing campaigns,
Gurry said, and had thought an iLoo would appeal to the British. MSN
typically allows its units to tailor their own campaigns to their regions, she
said.

But MSN's executive team, which had heard of the iLoo through news
reports, took the unusual step of killing the project on Monday, she said,
believing that the portable toilet "wasn't the best extension of our brand."

It's still unclear how much work was ever done on the iLoo. Gurry said she
did not know how much time or money was spent on it.

The company had said it was building a prototype and was in the process of
converting a portable toilet. But MSN marketing manager Tracy Blacher said
Tuesday in London that the company had not done that. Rather, Blacher,
who described the project in the original news release that quoted her
repeatedly, said MSN had some discussions with portable toilet
manufacturers, which she said she could not name because she was not at
her desk.

___http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030513/ap_on_hi_te/microsoft_hoax_3

On the Net:

http://www.microsoft.com

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