File this under the textbook definition of Schadenfreude: delight at the misfortune of others.
It’s no coincidence that during a week when dozens of malicious Android apps have been pulled from the Android Market, Microsoft is offering five Android malware victims a free Windows Phone 7 phone. The catch? You need to share your rage against Android with the Twitterverse.
Microsoft evangelist Ben Rudolph (@BenThePCGuy) tweeted Monday that he is giving away five Windows Phone 7 devices to those who tweet @BenThePCGuy with the best – and by best, I mean worst – stories of Android malware infection. Include #droidrage in your post.
With around 5 percent of the U.S. mobile market versus Android’s 45 percent market share, Microsoft's latest antic smacks of David picking at Goliath. They've also been giving away WP7 devices throughout the year: this summer WP7 director Brandon Watson famously bet Dilbert creator Scott Adams $1,000 that he’d love WP more than iOS or Android; a month later Watson also offered free Windows Phone development kits and devices to webOS developers. During last month's BlackBerry outage, Rudolph also gave away 25 Windows Phone devices to disgruntled Bberry users.
Given the security bent, Sophos’ Graham Cluley couldn’t hide his disgust at today's giveaway.
"I guess it must be kind of thrilling for Microsoft - which has endorsed the #droidrage campaign - to find the malware boot on the other foot for once," Cluley wrote in a blog post. "After all, they have long suffered having the Windows desktop operating system negatively compared to the likes of Unix and Mac OS X when it comes to the levels of malware infection."
This week, Google pulled dozens of malicious apps packaged with premium rate SMS Trojans. Yes, including a fake Angry Birds.
For more from Sara, follow her on Twitter @sarapyin.