...So says Kami Watson Huyse of Commmunications Overtones. She also recently cracked on Edelman and Microsoft for their handling of laptop-gate, concluding: I wonder if there will be as visible coverage of the Vista operating system as there was about the evaluation computers?

So, I decided to pose the same question to her: how do you think Edelman's PR stunt with Microsoft affected the quality of Edelman's mindshare online? And here's what she had to say:

Your question and some comments on my post about the Microsoft gift, got me to wondering how media companies, whose business it is to review items, handle this situation. I turned to the guidelines set forth by C|Net, one of the best-known tech review companies.

So, given that Edelman has such a commanding presence online, I decided to start asking some folks who've written on the Microsoft Vista laptop-gate a simple question: how do you think Edelman's PR stunt with Microsoft affected the quality of Edelman's mindshare online?

First up, Andy Lark, who recently placed blame squarely on Microsoft:

I'm not sure that Edelman had anything to do with the current Microsoft stunt although they've definitely been associated with it. This is a classic case of extending traditional PR tactics into the blogosphere. A very wrong move.