“Welcome to the ‘Mojave Experiment,'” states Microsoft’s Windows Vista rehab site.
Microsoft asks, “What do people think of Windows Vista when they don’t know it’s Windows Vista?”
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft has defeated their effort immediately simply because they have chosen the very least tech knowledgeable people to try to fool. People who can’t even recognize WIndows Vista. You won’t find a Mac OS X user in the bunch. That would defeat the purpose, because Mac OS X users are among the most tech knowledgeable people on the planet. Mac users have made conscious technology choice and are therefore better informed. We didn’t write that last sentence; Paul Thurrott of Windows Vista Secrets, Windows IT Pro Magazine, Windows Weekly, SuperSite for Windows, etc. did.
Microsoft’s Windows Vista rehab site continues, “We disguised Windows Vista codename ‘Mojave,’ the ‘next Microsoft OS,’ so regular people who’ve never used Windows Vista could see what it can do – and decide for themselves.”
Finally, Microsoft’s Windows Vista rehab site demands, “Now decide for yourself.”
The site houses a bunch of videos, which, in typical Microsoft fashion, feature ass-backwards operation: The “Play” triangle pauses each video and the “Pause” button plays them. As MacDailyNews Reader “Wingsy” wrote us, it’s “exactly opposite” of how every other video device on the planet works. “I guess it comes from thinking that ‘Start’ means Shut Down.”
Microsoft’s Adobe Flash — not Microsoft Silverlight-based — Windows Vista rehab site is here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers too numerous to mention for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: It’s sad, and telling, that Microsoft has stooped to using the least tech knowledgeable people, Windows XP and earlier users, to fool. This is like taking people who’ve lived all their lives in tar paper shacks to a trailer park filled with double-wides and asking them “Gee, isn’t this great?” Without, of course, ever showing them, or even mentioning, the beautiful mansions on the other side of town. Where the Mac users live.
And, by the way, these tech illiterates were shown a “demo” of Vista. Not let loose with the thing, not allowed to touch things on their own or, God forbid, try to install it and use it on their own PC. “Mojave Experiment?” “Rigged Experiment” is more like it.
So, Microsoft is going to try a $500 million ad campaign designed to convince to their long-suffering XP and earlier sufferers who’ve never used Mac OS X* (or else they’d be totally unimpressed with Vista disguised as “Mojave”) that even though 10,000 reviewers ran Windows Vista through extensive reviews and found it generally to be a derivative, bloated, hardware-taxing, incompatible, falsely-advertised, overpriced pile of crap that they were wrong. Everybody was wrong: the majority of corporate IT people who will not upgrade to Windows Vista, the Windows-centric and Windows-dependent reviewers, the Windows “power users,” everybody. Because Microsoft thinks they’re smarter than you and smarter than everybody. And you and everyone else made exactly the wrong choice by buying those iPods and now those iPhones and for even thinking about – much less actually – dumping Microsoft’s magnificent Windows for Macs in droves.
Bottom line: Microsoft is planning on spending $500 million to tell each person on the planet 50 times per week, “You’re just an ignorant fool and you’re stupid for not liking Windows Vista.”
Just try to keep them out of the Apple Stores, Microsoft, or your ruse is doomed.
* Microsoft’s Windows Vista rehab site does state that 22% of those duped were “Apple OS” users at one time or another, we assume – which, we guess, means: Apple DOS users back in the 1980s! Nice try, Microsoft, you weasels.
MacDailyNews’ Recommended Reading: Wil Shipley’s (Delicious Monster) excellent essay: “The Mojave Experiment:” Bad Science, Bad Marketing
Actually, ‘Mojave’ as a name is a hell of a lot better than the bland ‘vista’ moniker. However, a namechange won’t save Windows from its crippling stupidity.
I must say how wonderfully profligate MS has become. For half a billion dollars, surely – surely – they could poured it into making Windows something Apple could compete against.
OS X almost has it too easy. Put both OSes together and there’s absolutely no contest whatsoever.
I’m waiting for the next press release saying they’re committing a BILLION dollars into promoting Vista the week they replace it with XP SP4, er, Windows Vienna, 7, whatever…
At the end of the day, if MS is so desperate to rid itself of cash, they could give it back to the shareholders!
you can’t polish a turd.
you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Well I have to admit… They are good ads.
Now, before you ream me, I’m not saying Vista is good.. I’m saying the ADS are good and they likely will strike a chord with the Joe six packs of America.
it’s like putting lipstick on a pig. Funny, the audience they’re aiming for probably find pigs wearing lipstick attractive.
Andy,
That would be a neat test. Have a Vista PC and a Mac side by side and have those same people try various actions on one and then the other.
If all of the Windows security is turned on, I’m sure it would be an enlightening experience for them. Internet Explorer against Safari, Media Player against iTunes.
Then show them all of the great extras that come with a Mac, such as iLife. Wouldn’t be much of a contest.
MikeK,
“… the Joe six packs …”
As in abs or beer? Slightly different demographics.
That’d be beer. As in most of middle America. As in who these ads are targeted towards.
I watched a few of those, but they were so overlapping and there was no real substance.
Actually *show* the people using the OS, don’t just have them talk about it.
The responses were not very convincing, simply because the people seemed sooooo convinced.
Just wait until they actually try and install it at home. Most of them would struggle to get the stupid box open. It’s fine to show them something on the latest super expensive computer, but as soon as they try put it on their home desktops and laptops they’ll be wishing they weren’t so stupid!
You can have those users Windoze, we don’t want them!
MikeK,
Middle America? Hey, I think that’s me! Mussst resissst!
Apple needs to sponsor a NASCAR team.
1 nice all black race car with the pristine logo on the hood.
How bout the guy who WASN’T convinced??!! he’s there if you look hard enough…
…and to try and make you feel like he discovered something good about the system, they take a possibly real challenging question – how come its so fast?? …as in every other version I’ve used is as slow as a pig and therefore you must have rigged this experiment etc and try to spin it as a good thing…
check it out – the guy really looks supiciously at them when they reveal its vista… and how do we know it was vista they were using??? do they ever show them actually using it??
dodgy man…
So….Mojave includes a Windows employee who will handle the computer for me and do things easily..and as one of the persons says……”that seems easy”…
I totally agree !!!! It COULD even be easier than my current setup: Myself and Leopard….
I used to see videos of gorillas that ate a bunch of bananas. Their systems couldn’t process so much sugar at once, so they’d get drunk and stagger around. On one hand, you would think how unfortunate it was that the gorilla had lost its bearings. On the other hand, you would laugh at the video and the drunken gorillas.
Microsoft is the drunken gorilla. Did they ever want to make the best OS ever? Doesn’t look like it.
It’s also the placebo effect: If you tell people they are evaluating a super-secret, future thing, they expect more. Just like how telling patients they are taking a $2.50 pain pill is more effective than if they think they are taking a 10¢ pill.
Let them try OS X and Vista side-by-side for a few hours. “Do you want Brand A or Brand B?”
“I’ll take the non-shitty one over there” (pointing to the Mac).
“Apple needs to sponsor a NASCAR team.”
Not Apple’s target market dude. If Apple did, I’d throw my damn Powerbook out the window.
Hahaha!! LOL!!! How do we know that they didn’t show these people Mac OS X??
When MS first announced they were going to spend $500M to counter Apple’s ads, I knew toilets were about to plug up in Redmond with all those wads of cash being thrown in the bowls.
But first the old ship and flat earth print ad and now the Mojave taste test, this is even more lame then I could have ever imagined.
Apple should buy ad space and time and give it to MS so they have an even bigger ad campaign and further demonstrate their brilliance.
I’ve been waiting to see Microsoft’s ad campaign before I formed an opinion on their efforts. It’s still too soon to make a final judgment, but I think they are making a mistake.
I remember that when Vista came out people were very impressed with many of it’s features and talked about it’s impressive eye candy. So I’m not surprised that a short demo of Vista met with a favorable response.
The question is, will this ad campaign help Microsoft? It’s designed to make people re-consider Vista and buy it. But Vista did not get it’s bad reputation in a vacuum. Vista isn’t just perceived as a bad product – it IS a bad product. The more Microsoft pushes to change the perception of Vista, the more those who dislike Vista will be motivated to point out Vistas defects.
I’ll wait and see. But I’m thinking that Microsoft is making a 500 million dollar mistake.
One of my best friends in on the site. They edited the ever-lovin’ krap out of his actual impressions. He says they did a little picture stitching demo and the app had a bug in it! Big ugly black lighting bolt ruining the photo, They said “it does that sometimes”. He saw right away that it was not a mac and, well whoo else? (Sorry but unbutu is not out doing multi-million dollar 3 camera product testing.)
Greg..
They don’t really have a choice do they? They can keep using XP.. which they wil do.. or upgrade to Vista, which they will have to do eventually.
Mac OS won’t run on standard PCs.. and a Mac would cost them about 600 bucks at least.
Linux is simply not a feasible OS in the real world for client side usage.
MS has no competition.
Now. If MS is losing (and they are) customers to the Mac, it means people are wiling to spend all the money on the HARDWARE, just to move, which is amazing.
FYII, these people running XP, probably think that they can run Vista on their machines at home.
That would be incorrect.
They’ll have to upgrade anyway, so getting a Mac isn’t such a crazy idea.
Or they’ll get a new PC and say “Does this have Mojave? Great!” Guess what, you have no choice.
@dijonaise,
How much did they pay your buddy to be in that “experiment”??
MS should update their slogan
Your Passion. We’d have to trick you to use our crap™
I used to be unknowledgeable and even lived in a trailer. But then I invested in the Apple iTele lifestyle and teleported my way out of it. I even teleported into the Mojave Desert once, didn’t like it.
Why live in the desert when you can live anywhere with your personal Apple teleportation system.