Defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company:
"FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people
instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering
[Amdahl] products." The idea, of course, was to persuade them to go
with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This
implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that
Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark
Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software.
See {IBM}. After 1990 the term FUD was associated increasingly
frequently with {Microsoft}, and has become generalized to refer to
any kind of disinformation used as a competitive weapon.
[In 2003, SCO sued IBM in an action which, among other things,
alleged SCO's proprietary control of {Linux}. The SCO suit rapidly
became infamous for the number and magnitude of falsehoods alleged in
SCO's filings. In October 2003, SCO's lawyers filed a memorandum in
which they actually had the temerity to link to the web version of
this entry in furtherance of their claims. Whilst we appreciate the
compliment of being treated as an authority, we can return it only by
observing that SCO has become a nest of liars and thieves compared to
which IBM at its historic worst looked positively angelic. Any judge
or law clerk reading this should surf through to my collected
resources on this topic for the appalling details.--ESR]
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {FUD wars}{IBM}]