Hello all......
I am a local businessman who was very surprised to see the July 7th front page story titled "Nat'l conglomerate profiles local buisness". This article, written by Chris Robinette, details how Microsoft has recently profiled McDonald's Computer Service for it's website.
This article insinuates that Microsoft has bestowed some sort of special honor to McDonald's company by contacting him to update his profile on their website.
I own a computer company on the south end of town and was also contacted by Microsoft several weeks ago to update my profile.
In fact, Microsoft is contacting every one of it's partners.
This is just a routine matter for them to bring their records and website up to date.
In the article Ralph McDonald is quoted as saying,"His reputation is probably what sparked Microsoft's interest in profiling his business". He also goes on to say, "the Microsoft profile has come up because we are so proactive into bringing stuff into our community". Both of these statements are totally false, as once again, Microsoft is profiling all of it's current business partners.

It is my contention that Mr. McDonald should be aware of this fact, as when I was on the phone with Microsoft updating our profile the first thing they mentioned to me is that they were calling all their partners to update their profiles. I feel that the above statements made by Mr. McDonald are very misleading.

I would also like to say that I always thought that it was a journalist's job to report the news in an unbiased fashion. Chris Robinette has in my eyes failed to keep to that standard. When Mr. Robinette wrote this article he did so in such a way as to elevate McDonald's Computer Service above all the other local computer shops. He took a routine phone call from Microsoft and expanded it into a full blown front page news story. McDonald's contact with Microsoft was nothing more then if your local phone company contacted you to update your yellow page advertisement.

I personally stopped by the Traveler's office this morning and spoke to the editor regarding this article...mentioning all the above facts to him. He seemed surprised and also told me that he "had not yet read the article". I am not sure exactly what an editor's job description is, but how is it that a front page article is appearing in his paper and he is not aware of it? He told me that he would have the reporter get in touch with me regarding his article, but so far he has not contacted me.

I am also very proud of my business and our local community.....where is my front page story? If all it takes is a routine call from Microsoft to make the front page I should have been on there long ago. Rest assured that if Mr. Robinette interviewed me I would not try to mislead the public.

David Mueller
Discount Computer Sales