“Microsoft this week offered a window into the first phase of a mega million dollar advertising campaign designed to clear up ‘misconceptions’ about the quality of its Windows Vista operating system exacerbated by in-your-face marketing efforts on the part of longtime rival Apple,” Slash Lane reports for AppleInsider.
“Instead of responding directly to Apple’s influential ‘I’m a Mac, I’m a PC’ [Get a Mac] global campaign, an ad that appears on the company’s website recalls that ‘at one point, everyone thought the Earth was flat.’ It links to a recently established information base on the state of Windows Vista, which attempts to ‘clear up some confusion and lingering misunderstandings’ about the XP successor while simultaneously admitting to some early missteps,” Lane reports.
“‘We know that’s what some people are saying on the Internet,’ the company said, opting not to mention Apple by name. ‘And in its early days, Windows Vista did experience some compatibility problems. But thanks to our industry partners’ efforts during the past 18 months, here’s where things stand today,'” Lane reports. “According to Microsoft, Vista now supports nearly 77,000 hardware products, runs 98 of the top 100 consumer software programs, and works with all of the leading small business applications.”
MacDailyNews Take: How well Vista “supports” hardware and “works with” software goes unmentioned, of course.
“It’s believed that Microsoft plans to spend more than $300 million on its pro Vista, anti Apple marketing blitz before the dust settles,” Lane reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Sir Gill Bates” for the heads up.]
Does the $300 million somehow magically change Windows Vista from a frustrating, bloated, upside-down and backwards derivative wannabe Mac that runs mainly on low-margin, fugly, cut-rate hardware?
Leave it to Microsoft to spend $300 million trying to chrome-plate a turd when what they really ought to be doing is tossing the whole thing in the Trash “Recycle Bin” and starting from scratch.
Microsoft Windows will die on the altar of “backwards compatibility.”
Windows. It is your father’s OS.
Its true that I had a misconception about Vista ; I thought it was great.
Why not take the 300 mil and build a better OS?
They should spend the $300M on fixing the d**m product!
So the ad tells me that not only was the operating system delivered late, but it took a year and a half for the operating system to be compatible with my already purchased peripherals and software after I spent about $400 on the OS upgrade.
<i>”It links to a recently established information base on the state of Windows Vista, which attempts to ‘clear up some confusion and lingering misunderstandings’ about the XP successor while simultaneously admitting to some early missteps,”<i>
Sounds like they’re readying public opinion for a lawsuit. I wonder if they’ll recruit John Hodgman.
Vista was 5 years to late to market and after another 18 months the drivers are almost ready now for the most available hardware.
NOT IMPRESSED AT ALL!
At one point, everyone thought they needed Windows….
Will this new ad campaign make Vista faster?
I gave Vista a good six month shot on my work-issued Lenovo before finally buying a black macbook and stuffing the work-issued Lenovo in the closet until its lease is up. Vista is the slowest operating system I have ever used. Cut/Copy/Paste operations take easily 10 times longer on Vista than on XP or Mac. Seriously, I timed it. A routine network copy I do every day for work takes about 3 minutes on OSX and XP, and about 30 minutes on Vista.
Call me a flat-earther, but Vista is slow as molasses and no ad campaign is going to make it any faster.
Besides, Microsoft can’t create a good commercial to save their lives. Maybe they should hire Chiat-Day instead of letting Shirley in Marketing write their tv spots.
If consumers who purchased Vista up to now are pissed because the damn thing doesn’t work right, just think of their warm and fuzzy feelings toward MS when the new ad campaign convinces them that Vista now works great and they buy a new Vista computer and find out it really is a POS.
Microsoft certainly knows how to build customer loyalty.
The $300M ad campaign will be the most expensive lipstick ever put on a pig.
I like how the original source article (requires two click-throughs) states that the preview showing of the ads was met with raves, then casually throws in that the audience was entirely Microsoft employees. Well, duh!
300M and that’s the best they can come up with? LOL Wow! hey look! The wow finally started!
i have vista for over 1 yr on two computers no issues.
it means mac idiots got issues!
maybe im special? HAHA
its like saying Toyotas dont break down. they do…
damn im on my 3rd iPhone… Apples are going the same route MS is… downward!
I was one of the employees at the premier of these ads. One of them compares “Vista deniers” to Holocaust deniers. Chilling, effective, and powerful. This ad will definitely change some minds. Apple is just like Hitler.
“According to Microsoft, Vista now supports nearly 77,000 hardware products, runs 98 of the top 100 consumer software programs, and works with all of the leading small business applications.”
When will those people learn that those numbers do not matter? For me, it does not matter how many hardware products are supported, or how many software titles run. I just need the one hardware product, and the one software title that is NOT supported to run.
It doesn’t matter if there are thousands of freeware programs out there, when 99% of those freeware programs all do the same stuff I do not need them to do.
at one point, everyone thought the Earth was flat
at one point, everyone thought that Windows was good system
Oh, that’s a real good comparison they leave open
Listen, if Microsoft wants to blow $300 million on a futile campaign to convince folks that Vista is a desirable option, let them. Playing “defensive” shows they’re one step from “desperate” and a few steps from “beleaguered”. Besides, the economy could use the boost.
Roomba
I resent that remark!
And the use of wooden sailing ship is soooo futuristic.
NOT!!!!
Micro-n-Soft once again proves that if you spend enough on marketing some will start to believe that pigs CAN fly!
@Macro
3rd iPhone…happened to the first two? I have three in my family and zero problems. I also run Vista and ummm it had some issues, no deal killers just the same old, Oh Sh*t lets figure out a work around AGAIN!
I read about this a month or two ago in Wired Mag. Some pretty boy mac user is the dude that got the contract for the campaign.
I repeat, the man running the campaign uses a mac
I REPEAT . . . . . ..!
It seems way too late for this kind of advertising now. Microsoft needs to start working on it’s excuses for the next version of Windows .
So far, I am still waiting for the WOW to start. Flat Earth? Oh, yeah, that will resonate with the target audience.
Seriously, the ad firm that MS has hired – Crispin Porter + Bogusky – has good cred. They’ve done successful campaigns for folks like Mini Cooper and Burger King. But many people think they are in over their heads with Microsoft. We’ll see. Not an auspicious beginning. Flat Earth, indeed…
Some of you might remember the Vista Cruiser? A bloated overized vehicle that was connected to a division of General Motors
(Oldsmobile) now is a defunked division that helped bury the company.
Vista is to OS X as Oldsmobile is to Ferrari
So if you use Vista you are alone on a ship in a big lonely sea with no help around….