A marketing strategy used by a dominant company to confuse and freeze the competition by either maintaining secrecy with respect to future product or service plans or by changing them frequently and, thereby, creating concerns that competitors' products might not be compatible with those of the dominant vendor.The term was coined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found Amdahl Corporation. Amdahl was quoted as saying "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM salespeople instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products."