“Even though Windows XP has been on the market for more than three years, Microsoft is hoping a new advertising campaign will ‘start something’ when it comes to enthusiasm for the operating system,” Ina Fried reports for CNET News. “The campaign, which will last for 15 months, is designed to showcase all the things Windows can do.”
MacDailyNews Take: No, the campaign will not feature getting infected with a virus that wipes your hard drive clean nor will it showcase downloading critical patches to patch OS patches that you thought were patched until yesterday’s patch broke last month’s patch, you patcher.
Fried continues, “The campaign which will launch in 11 countries with online, print and television ads, will try to play up Windows as the start to many things. The ads will have messages like “Start something curious,” “Start discovering lost cities” and “Start feeding your brain.” In all, Microsoft said there are 51 TV spots, 39 print ads and 250 online advertisements.”
MacDailyNews Take: Unfortunately, “Start waking up,” “Start thinking for yourselves,” and “Start looking beyond the initial sticker price” will not be used. “Start is for shutting down,” “Start reformatting your hard drive for your biannual fresh Windows install,” and “Start getting owned” most definitely will not be mentioned within the confines of Microsoft’s campaign.
Fried continues, “the ‘Start Something’ campaign will serve as a run up to the debut of Longhorn, the next version of Windows, which is set to go on sale by next year’s holiday shopping season. Jim Allchin, the head of the Windows unit, said in an interview last week to expect a massive ad push for Longhorn as well.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Let the attention diversion from Tiger begin! Advertising an operating system on a massive scale? Now, that’s actually innovative — at least it is in Cupertino. Wonder what would happen if Apple would try something like that with Mac OS X Tiger?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Mossberg: ‘consider dumping Windows altogether and switching to Apple’s Macintosh’ – April 18, 2005
Why doesn’t Apple advertise Mac OS X on TV? – April 12, 2005
Steve Jobs is an IDIOT. If you recall, he has NEVER advertised the operating system. In fact, there was BARELY any advertising coming out of Apple before the iPod. STEVE JOBS IS A FOOL FOR NOT ADVERTISING TIGER!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey Steve…
Start using some of that iPod Shuffle ad time for an OSX + iLife ad.
Plays for sure…
Profesor:’king_alvarez: “Could it be that they are definitely scared about Tiger?”: YES (and little bit about Linux)’
Absolutely! There is a big Linux conference happening in Toronto starting today. Directly below the half page article (not an ad) about the Linux system being a threat to Windows,M$ has taken out an half page ad titled: “Weighing the Real Costs of Linux and Windows”. It about exposure to suits about intellectual property rights. they offer a website with details: http://www.microsoft.ca/getthefacts
They are definitely getting worried about the competition!
Well, Jobs is certainly not a fool by anyone’s definition. But, the lack of advertising OSX is odd. What could possibly be the reason???
Yesterday I finally cleared the last hurdle to rid myself of my old PC. I bought a new USB capable printer. An Epson R200. My old printer was a Parallel HP printer that had to be hooked up directly to my old PC for network printing (I tried the USB to Centronics adaptors, the would not work hooked up directly to my Dual-G5.). Now that I have the new Printer, my PC and all it’s parts/software/peripherals can be sold off. I no longer need the headache of dealing with it.
As for “Patches” for the Mac OS? I’ve seen some Security updates, and the occasional OS updates, but I’ve never heard of a Patch for Mac OS to plug an exploited vulnerability. There have been many potential vulnerabilities but they have all be dealt with BEFORE they became a problem. That is a track record against Microsoft that I have no problem touting. Microsoft’s patching is reactionary, whereas Apple’s updates are PROACTIVE. Plus, I believe the ratio of Microsoft patches to Apple’s updates is something in the area of 10 to 1, and that’s being generous. Plus, I haven’t experienced a single problem updating any of my Macs since I switched, with one small exception. The grey Apple startup screen resized itself after the 10.3.7 update to something like 800×600, so it looks a little goofy on startup. But then, that’s not technically a problem, eh?
>Well, Jobs is certainly not a fool by anyone’s definition. But, the lack of advertising OSX is odd. What could possibly be the reason???>
Is it possible that Steve J. is a silent partner in MS?
Patches.
Microsoft should have called it:
‘Lets start programming longhorn’
or
“Lets start brainwashing our customers to buy a bug ridden, unfinshed OS that they wll necer need’
Or
“Lets start bleeding our fatted calf”
Or
“Lets start doing something – anything – just to keep Apple off our backs!”
LOL!!!
R.I.P. Microsoft…
SJ – FSCKING ADVERTISE THE OS!!!!
i do not think that M$ is scared of Apple per se. that might be the case on a small scale, but the overall problem they face is to explain their base of third party developers why longhorn takes so long to come out.
like a magician, microsoft tries to distract everyone from what is really going on… essentially nada. that will bite them. there has never been anything essentially new with windows since win95, other than cosmetic updates — it is still dos-based (not in your face, but it’s there), no patch can fix the gaping security holes, the list of flaws is long. longhorn, as it was advertised, is nothing but vapor-ware. their new technologies are scraped one by one, leaving nothing but a name-driven servicepack.
third party developers are driven by tight schedules. imagine you are at least a middle-sized software developer, you code for the longhorn-concept, but all that investment (time and precious money) is for not, because you built on vapor. that is not a good situation for microsoft, to piss off a lot of developers at this point in the game.
so far, microsoft has extended longhorn’s release, and over time, reduced the promised innovations.
so M$ is doing what it can do best, a combination of bling-bling advertising (and FUD on the side.) this is desperation, ladies and gentlemen… but at least, it should get entertaining.
This should sound familiar: a)sell as much of a soon to be passe product as possible; b)introduce the new version and make consumers feel left out if they don’t upgrade.
No one has ever done that as well as Apple, but Gates will give it a try.
“M$ tries to play Os X down by advertising Os XP as X Professional”
And we thought it was Xtreme Patching…
Very long-pregancy for Longhorn..ha ha
I hope they demo the absolute best thing on XP.
iTunes & iTMS.
That’s another $200 million in innovation, R&D, researching how to sell more.
Advertising Mac OS X, if you had to pay for the exposure Steve Jobs brings to Apple the bill would be tens of millions per year. Advertising is very, very expensive, don’t switch the funds from genuine research to bullshit marketing. Just keep on making better products and be happy with a potential market share of 15%, want more than that, you have to sell your soul.
But they already advertise a sh*t load (and therefore spend a ton of money) for the iPod which has a 70+% marketshare, so why not for OS X which has about a 4% marketshare? There is more money to be made by selling more Macs than iPods. That’s why I’ve never understood the lack of OS X/Mac advertising, particularly over the past two years.
Do they have anything better to do? So lets start spending some money on an OS that more than two years old! Pathetic! 😀
patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers REDMOND! REDMOND!
patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers
REDMOND! REDMOND!
patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers patchers
WORM! IT’S A WORM! OOOOOH, IT’S A WORM!
(hoping somebody gets this joke)
I can see it now.
“WINDOWS XP!!”
“Let’s get Retarded! Let’s get retaaarrdeeed!!”
Awww come on I just DARE them to use Get it Started. 😀
Something’s not right here. Microsoft is launching a massive, 15-month long international media campaign, at enormous expense no doubt, to promote a product that will be replaced at the end of the advertising campaign? Maybe my tinfoil hat is a bit tight, but this could a not-so-subtle indication that Longhorn’s problems might be more serious than Microsoft lets on, and they’re cultivating a fallback position in case Longhorn fails due to technical or other reasons:
“Yeah, Longhorn didn’t live up to expectations, but you didn’t need it anyway! See how perfectly good WindowsXP is!”
The next year or so will be very interesting for Linux, OS X and Windows. And somewhat off-topic, the Microsoft bashing around here is getting really stale. They’ve got their own problems; let Windows users deal with them, and let’s worry about our own platform. I believe that if the Mac community is interested in getting PC users to switch, we have to be more diplomatic about the contrast between OS X and Windows when talking to Windows users. You won’t win people’s hearts and minds by telling them that they’re stupid and that their choices suck.
I see this as an attempt to get people to buy a new PC more than it is an effort to get them to upgrade the OS.
The reason? Longhorn’s predicted hardware requirements (too lazy to post the link). You are going to need a machine made in the last year to run it credibly (if at all). So the more people move now, the more people will be able to buy Longhorn.
The difference here, Joe, is that Apple loads in tons of new features which can be had for a reasonable price (see the transition from Jag to Panther). So the incentive to upgrade is substantial, especially when you consider the cost. It is hardly an insult to Apple to say that they make products people want to buy.
Joe, I will be loading Tiger on my father’s 5 year old imac in a couple of weeks. What OS is your PC running?
LordRobin: Obviously from the Badger song? Now, to see if I can redo the Llama song and call it the Patcher song?
The Patcher Song
_________________
Here’s a patcher, there’s a patcher,
and another little patcher,
fuzzy patcher, funny patcher,
patcher, patcher, duck.
Patcher, patcher, cheesecake, patcher,
tablet, brick, potato, patcher,
patcher, patcher, mushroom, patcher,
patcher, patcher, duck.
I was once treehouse,
I lived in a cake,
But I never saw the way,
The orange slayed the rake.
I was only three years dead,
but it told a tale,
and now listen little child,
to the patcher wail.
Did you ever see a patcher,
kiss a patcher on THE patcher?
Patcher’s patcher tastes of patcher,
patcher, patcher, duck.
Half a patcher, twice a patcher,
not a patcher farmer patcher,
patcher in a car alarm,
a patcher, patcher, duck.
Is that how it’s told now?
Is it all so old?
Is it made of lemon juice,
doorknob, ankle cold.
Now my song is getting thin,
I’ve run out of luck!
Time for me to buy a mac,
and become a Duck.
Maybe I shouldn’t have…heh
I was just thinking that last line in the first chorus should go..
But I never saw the way,
that Apple slayed Bill Gates.
Hmm…still needs more work.
Apple MacOS X campaign:
Why wait? Start now with Mac OS X Tiger.
Magic word “voice,” as in the voice of reason
Once again, MacDailyNews acts like a bunch of little children in reporting this story. Honest to God, can’t you people report the news without resorting to silly little childish playground taunts?
Sheesh. Have some class, will ya?