“You’ve no doubt seen Apple’s infamous Switcher ads. Who hasn’t? In ad after ad, a Windows PC–played to humorous effect by affable comedian and “The Daily Show” contributor John Hodgman–is played the fool by Mac, a barely tolerable student slacker played by Justin Long (who I’m sure is a fine guy in real life). The Switcher ads are painfully effective, though anyone with even a modest understanding of what’s really going on today in the PC marketplace will tell you that Apple’s claims often stretch the bounds of credibility,” Paul Thurrott writes for SuperSite for Windows.
MacDailyNews Take: How about some examples and proof of Apple stretching the bounds of credibility in their “Get a Mac” (not “Switcher”) ads, you ask? Thurrott, predictably, offers none.
Thurrott continues, “So why do I mention this here? After all, as a Windows IT Pro UPDATE reader, you’re ostensibly an IT pro of some kind. What could these consumer-oriented bits of fluff possibly have to do with work? …My feeling is that consumer- and business-oriented technologies have been cross-pollinating since the dawn of the PC era… The reason this is important to IT pros is that the cross-pollination… is in danger of reaching a tipping point.”
These Apple Mac ads are, Thurrott continues, “in my mind, to computing what the ‘swift boat’ ads were to the 2004 US presidential election. To date, Microsoft has had an unspoken rule about its competition in the consumer OS space: It pretends there isn’t any. But with Apple making steady ground in OS market share since Steve Jobs returned to the company, especially in key markets like the US, consumer sales, and, most especially, the mobility market, it’s time for Microsoft to respond. My hope is that the company can make a more effective and more aggressive response than the one that sunk John Kerry’s presidential aspirations four years ago.”
“Microsoft has been notably silent, allowing Apple to control the discussion and let perception become reality. And honestly, why would Microsoft even license Exchange to Apple? Are they crazy? Between this and all the other ActiveSync licensing, they’ve effectively ceded the smart phone market to their competitors,” Thurrot writes. “What’s next? A license to run Windows applications on the Mac?”
MacDailyNews Take: Rhetorical question, we know, but we already have a license. We can run Windows apps on our Macs already.
Thurrott continues, “It’s time for Microsoft to respond to the challenges it faces with leadership and authority. And if you care about the systems you support now, your jobs, and your very livelihood, you might do demand the same from the company. All of us have backed the same horse. And from what I can tell, that horse looks like it’s ready for the proverbial pasture.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Demand all you want, but just because you’ve backed the wrong horse doesn’t mean you can force it to win. Your horse is lame (always has been). The race is over. Most people don’t see it, yet, but it’s over. Apple Macs are the only universal computing systems available today (outside of Psystar 
). Apple’s Macs run the world’s largest library of software. Even Paul Thurrott himself has already recommended that people buy Apple’s iPhone 3G and also recommended that people buy Apple Macs, calling them “the ultimate PC.” For Jobs’ sake, even John Dvorak is advising that people buy Macs!
The “Get a Mac” ads are effective, but just like the so-called “swift boat” ads, they are not the main reason for success of one and the failure of another. Apple Mac is gaining converts because:
• People are sick and tired of Windows frustration
• They can find Macs much easier now due to the growing network of Apple Retail stores
• People are becoming more tech savvy
• Apple Macs are superior personal computers than Windows PCs
• People are finally realizing that Apple offers better support and higher customer satisfaction
• The iPod (and iPhone) has introduced or reintroduced people to Apple quality
• Word of mouth from family, friends, and co-workers
• There are more reasons, but we’ve made our point: it’s not just “Get a Mac” ads driving the change.
IT people, the best way to protect your livelihoods is not to demand that a massive bureaucracy devoid of effective leadership somehow magically begin, after 30 years, to create quality customer-focused products while obsessing over every minute detail, but to instead stop throwing up roadblocks and perpetuating outdated, laughable myths, and embrace the superior Mac OS X platform – you’re going to be using it in some or many forms sooner than later.
By the title of the article, I thought that maybe Turdrot may be awakening from the Matrix, but no luck. He’s still a clueless ass.
Whoa! Despite that conclusion, it sounds like someone has a very large bug up his butt.
One of the reasons people keep buying Windows PC comes straight from this Microsoft Windows lifer. Job security (“very livelihood”) ! These guys are like drug pushers, as people switch to Mac their job is over.
Microsoft shot the new horse (Vista) and told people to downgrade to the virus infected old horse (Windows XP). Yeah, the same “Windows hell” Gates was upset with! That horse was a bad copy when people got it years ago!
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/17663/
@ @MDN: There IS a mac for “poor people”, the $599 Mac Mini. Its perfectly capable, and you could use your current keyboard, mouse, and monitor, (if its VGA, you can get an adapter for around $2 on eBay)
@Mac+
Global good will? What the hell kind of wimpazz liberal are you? You sound like your typing from Ballmer’s desk himself….under his desk! Are you Ballmer? Are you Ballmer all huddled up in a corner crying not knowing what to do?
All Apple is doing is telling it like it is. Yes its a bit exaggerated and made to be entertainment but all those get a mac ads are doing is taking advantage of all the flaws that Microsoft fully knows about but don’t care enough to address. Why don’t they care? Because they run a monopoly so why should they.
Well the tech users have grown up….the PC isn’t a wonder device “oooo what is that?” and people simply know better now.
Global goodwill……Gates is a good guy. Gimme a freakin break with that manipulative politically correct garbage! What the hell kind of crapped up evil world do we live in now that people actually talk like that.
I’m shaking my head back and forth in disgust.
“Microsoft has been notably silent, allowing Apple to control the discussion and let perception become reality.”
Actually, Apple has been letting reality – at long last – become perception.
Come on we want MS and Windows to last forever…if not who would we make fun of?
Coming from the perspective of a 21 year old college kid… The people I know who have recently bought or are planning on buying a computer (PC or Mac) plan to spend $1000 to $1500. These are people that know that to get a good computer, you need to spend that much money. The older, not as tech-savvy crowd, who read e-mail, causally browse, and maybe organize some digital photos, aren’t willing to spend that much and get that “low-cost” computer (in which the Mac Mini is a viable option).
What Apple realizes, however, is that the baby boomers will buy maybe 1-5 computers the rest of their lives, while college aged kids (where their market share is beginning to become massive) will buy 10-15 computers, at least. Apple definitely does not need to “cross that threshold” and “ship junk”
To save suffering, they shoot lame horses, don’t they?
Thurrott by any other name is still a jerk, old wounds heal slowly. Don’t know why MDN even posts his crap unless they, like Paul, are trolling for hits.
@Mac+
“Low cost Mac? That’s all we need! And it doesn’t have to be that low. Starting point: $759. A good $759 complete solution and Apple worldwide market share quadruple in 2 years.Apple don’t have to hit 30% market share worldwide… a good, stable 15% and game over.”
DUDE, you need a Dell. LOL
I bought a MacBook with combo drive, refurb, like new will full warr. and lookes great. $ 850. You got to be quick.
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I think changing “credibility” to “believability” – especially given his primary audience – would have improved that part of the article. When a Chevy geek tells a Ford geek that a Malibu will outrun a Taurus, there’s bound to be a believability gap, even if it’s true. Replace “geek” with “mechanic” and there will be a lot of “givens” and “buts” in the discussion. The difference between “credibility” and “believability” is modest … between <u>given</u> facts and <u>perceived</u> facts, all in the eye’s of the beholder.
Perceptions are changing, these days. “Get a Mac” is helping do that. M$ is helping, as well, with Vista and other products. Ads would not help M$ recover any lost lead, in my opinion. I could be wrong. I believe you need a product AND room to grow to benefit from ads. They really have little of either.
the shit bin would be more like it!
Aren’t the Switcher ads from the 90’s or early aughties (whatever decade we’re in now)?
I hate to say it, but Thurrott has some good writing there. He tells us that Apple’s Get A Mac ads “often stretch the bounds of credibility”, but provides no examples. Then, while we are still anticipating support for that statement he equates the Get A Mac campaign with the “Swift Boat” ads which have been largely proven to have included lies, gross exaggeration, and deceptive misstatements. Without writing anything actionable, Thurrott has led his readers to associate the Get A Mac campaign with the tainted “Swift Boat” ads. That’s good writing.
Bad journalism, but, eh, whatcha gonna do?
@Real IT Guy
In a way, it’s really, really funny to watch the MS advocates scramble madly to rationalize Apple’s ascendancy, and simply wish it weren’t so.
And I didn’t say IT departments were purely to blame, but consider the self-propagating industry MS created with Windows? People do crazy things, sometimes, to cling to their jobs, no matter how pointless or irrelevant the job is in the first place.
That alone is MS’s greatest weakness, an inbuilt culture of standing still, which is now manifesting itself to the logical conclusion.
Stagnation and decline.
Maybe Thurrott isn’t so stupid as to see what’s coming over the horizon, and why it will appeal to, and tempt away from Windows, his beloved IT pros: ZFS and the host of other features Snow Leopard (and especially the Server version) will have, which M$ can only dream about using.
Like some third-rate side-show magician, he’s using smoke and mirrors to divert their attention…
I am a sales manager at a car dealership, and the other day I mentioned to a customer something that our computer is incapable of doing and he said, “It must not be a Mac.”
I thought for sure that somehow, the subject of my passion for Appleust have come up between him and my salesman (he has a Mac too, by the way, and his kid even has an Apple sticker on his skateboard).
I asked him, being curious, what brought the subject up… He said, “the ads are al over TV!”
As soon as his wife caught up to the conversation, she piped up with, ” Oh yeah, I want one of those!”
Yes, I’d say the ads are effective.
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well, Apple’s ads are certainly one-sided if not also unfair. and very very aggressive. if i were a Windows guy, sure, i’d be righteously offended.
MS problem is, the overall critique of Windows in Apple’s ads “sticks.” not because each ad is completely accurate, but because Windows is clearly flawed and not really user-oriented, and the ads just remind everyone of that fact. with humor. and they are short too. so you actually watch them.
I was just in the Apple Store in Charlotte this morning. Sales rep. (a web designer) asks me if I’m a Mac or PC user. I give him the mock “how dare you face” and he tells me he counts about 90% PCers at the current customer ratio.
In an Apple Store.
solid
This sums up pretty much what the problem is with the state of IT today.
“If you care about the systems you support…”
IT’s job should not be to support “the systems”
IT’s job should be to support the user. Go do a google search for the Computer Users Bill Of Rights published by Business Week. It a horrifying manifesto that scares the be-jesus out of IT.
It states clearly that the user should be able to use the computer to accomplish tasks and that the computer is a tool to allow the user more efficiency and functionality.
IT is interested in controlling computers and systems. They care about the systems, and they REALLY don’t care about what users want.
The Mac allows the USER to get the job done. Without IT in control.
That terrorizes IT guys.
@Ampar
Thanks for those links.
@Bluefin
Think before you speak. Don’t pin your opinion on all of IT professionals out there. Changing systems is not a terrorizing thought for IT. The backbone of any decent company has to have a solid infrastructure, be it Mac, Windows or Linux. That is never going to change and the need for someone to support it is never going to go away.
It would appear the ongoing perception here is that IT only goes around fixing Windows problems. That is simply not the case. There are deployment needs, upgrade needs, not so savvy user needs, server needs, planning needs, programming, SOPs, security, etc… I support both Macs and PCs and for every three PC tickets I get, I get a Mac ticket. …and before you fluff your feathers over that, note that the ratio is about 3:1 PC to Mac here.
Calculators didn’t eliminate the Accountant, Medicine didn’t eliminate the Doctor. So how in the world would a Mac eliminate the IT Professional?
I have been an Apple fan far longer than many of you and this sickens me to see the actual “Holier than thou” syndrome PC users spoke of Mac users in the past actually come to fruition. Get over yourselves. It’s a freaking computer not the cure the world’s problems – even if it is a sweet computer.
The gap between IT jobs and IT College graduates is getting wider and wider. Technology continues to touch every aspect of business everywhere, as everything evolves, and the number of IT jobs are continuing to grow and grow. However, here in the good ole USA, kids are getting worse and worse at math and science, and for the last several years, the number of IT college graduates is actually going DOWN, despite the insane number of open positions!
For those of you who think the entire IT department at your work is spending all their time and resources just fixing Microsoft errors, you’re badly mistaken. We have low level grunts fixing user’s pc woes (which is definitely worse for pc’s than Mac’s), but the rest of us are rolling out new networks, new workstations, writing new software, managing networks… And most of that stuff works pretty darn well when you know what you’re doing.
So even if the whole world switched to mac, right here, right now, we would still need just about as many people doing just about the same amount and kinds of work. It may work better, and maybe the helpdesk department would get thinned out
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> But those are the low level lackies anyway, so who cares?
There’s now way that the “stability” of Mac is going to somehow bridge the gap of IT job holes. Sure, we may need to be retrained, but our general skills will still be needed, fo SHO!
@ Andy
I’m not sure if your comment, “People do crazy things, sometimes, to cling to their jobs, no matter how pointless or irrelevant the job is in the first place.” was meant to be directed at IT or just the industry in general but don’t confuse IT staff with Windows and Microsoft. They are two very separate things. Windows and the end users are just two cogs in the who scheme of things IT.
I don’t pretend to understand what you do in your job so don’t pretend you know what I do in mine.