FUD
<jargon> /fuhd/ An acronym invented 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.
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Jargon File]
