“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 $500 million to tell each person on the planet 50 times per week, “You’re just an ignorant fool and you’re stupid for not liking Windows Vista.”
Just try to keep them out of the Apple Stores, Microsoft, or your ruse is doomed.
* Microsoft’s Windows Vista rehab site does state that 22% of those duped were “Apple OS” users at one time or another, we assume – which, we guess, means: Apple DOS users back in the 1980s! Nice try, Microsoft, you weasels.
MacDailyNews’ Recommended Reading: Wil Shipley’s (Delicious Monster) excellent essay: “The Mojave Experiment:” Bad Science, Bad Marketing
First up, I’m a Mac fanboy.
But, there are some things that Apple is almost Microsoft-like in just not getting it.
Just look at MS Outlook to see where Apple just doesn’t understand business-grade apps.
e.g. In iCal, todo’s don’t sync with iPhone. Cannot make recurring todo’s. In AppleMail, non confirmation-of-receipt option in an email. It’s things like that which are needed in business that Apple just doesn’t pay attention, in spite of years and years of people asking for these features. And Apple just doesn’t get it. It’s not that Apple is not marketing to business. It is not going out of its way to make products that appeal to business.
Is it a new name for a same sh.t?
Tremendously enough, M$ proves (once again) that it prefers spending monney in promoting a product then in making it better!
Such a shame! I’m flabbergasted! 😡
@Peetz
This mail confirmation thing is absolutely useless! One perfectly knows that if there’s no MailDemon failure message, the mail HAS ARRIVED period! What else damn confirmation do you need? It’s only one more useless band-width glutton.
For other specific busyness tasks, there might be quite enough pro solutions (those who win monney with it, can buy it) around to get management perfectly done with OSX… Of course, some people are just so adicted and unready to make small changes in their lives, that they will feel too hard getting rid off windose! But this is their own responsability!
@i want my iTele
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You’re right! Have you already been at Yoltar (5th planet of Gal-mgeesh of the GrateArch) ?
Just real cool with a slightly more nitrogenize then on earth, but these very soft tree like colorfull foams!
@ BillK
The Le Mans & Formula 1 circuits are quite different than the Nascar ‘circuit’, and subsequently draw a very different demographic of fans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Hours_of_Le_Mans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASCAR
The point is, because Apple is a manufacturer of *high end* consumer electronics, they shouldn’t ever consider sponsoring a Nascar team… Le Mans, maybe… Formula 1, yes, if they ever become interested in sponsoring motor-sports.
I don’t see any of it happening because, unlike Steve Ballmer who likes to throw tons of money at useless / profitless projects, Steve Jobs prefers to strategically invest Apple’s funds into projects that will actually provide a return on the investment.
If anyone here is a Nascar fan, no offense intended.
Microsoft is now stealing from Pizza Hut. Some marketing exec must have been watch TV late one night. That annoying commercial comes on, about fooling a bunch of New York restaurant goers with the new take-out pasta menu, by serving it in a fancy restaurant.
Hey! Let’s fool a bunch of naive and novice computer users into thinking Windows Vista isn’t really Windows Vista.
@Peetz,
I’m the biggest Mac fanboy around also, but I totally agree with you that Apple does NOT understand how to make business-grade applications. There is nothing on the Mac that compares to Outlook. The pitiful & bug-ridden & feature-missing Entourage comes the closest, but Apple’s apps are a VERY far cry from the amazing Outlook. You listed just a few of the dozens of problems with Apple’s apps, but there’s so many more. Too many to list. Apple just doesn’t get it. They can make a great MP3 player & a solid operating system, but they simply don’t listen to what their business customers really want. Mail and Address Book and iCal have barely changed in 5 years, yet they need so much more.
Funny thing is, MS is stupid/weaselly enough to think that they are making progress when they see the site statistics showing loads of views from Safari OSX….
When we only went there for the laugh..
Just read your post there MacBill.. not sure I should dignify it with a response, but what the hell..
If you think that Mail, iCal and Address book are not much more elegant and useful than Outlook and its vast monstrosity of features then you are my friend, what photographers call ‘pixelpeepers’. ie you can never see the whole picture for looking at the detail.
Good luck to you and your bloat.
What annoys me most about these sort of ads is that they’re so obviously rigged. Forget the whole “experiment” part and just look at the demo videos, they selling them as real people using Vista, with their kids, watching TV etc. Anyone with half a mind knows it’s fake, knows the people have been cast – but they’re pretending to be actually using the thing and somehow getting some increased level of pleasure out of it. At least with the Mac/PC ads there is no attempt to hide the fact that it’s an ad, that they’ve been cast, that they’re playing for laughs, that they’re not meant to be a 100% accurate everyday illustration of using both systems, that they’re trying to make a larger point in a short space of time.
Oh God, this just screams parody, some one please make one! Get those guys that made the “Big Ass Table” one on this, it’s be awesome!
How Sad!!!!
Well, if it comes in brown… I’m SOLD!
Good lord are they serious with some of these videos?
It is very telling that none of these people are allowed to touch the computer and are just being shown a demo. I remember when we first started showing Maya (I was an application engineer for Alias) the response from our competitor (Softimage) was that “it demos well”. Everything demos well, that is what a demo is meant to do… sell you on something. The difference here is that once people actually get their hands on Vista they decide that, yes, Vista is actually crap all those stories were true.
And if I am not mistake the page reads that there were 140 respondents to their survey. So not being awake enough to do math help me out here. What is 22% of 140? And what Apple OS did those people use anyway because I am guessing they dragged some IIgs users in off the street.
So when does the WOW start?
Just an initial observation:
Showing people something new might help them assume that it is NOT from M$, which would further motivate them to think it’s gotta be awesome.
I can wait for the next Mac vs. PC commercial to parody this!
What I don’t understand is why MS would dump all of this money into Vista, just to replace it with Windows 7 shortly. Why not start talking and advertising Windows 7?
Typical response. They were reacting to an entirely scripted demo and this was their first reaction: “Wow, it’s a 10.”
Many of them may change their mind by the next day when they’ve had time to consider what they saw, realizing they did not have the opportunity to actually USE it.
On the surface the security features of Vista look pretty good – that is until you have to interact with them on a daily basis. Then they are just annoying as hell.
“If anyone here is a Nascar fan, no offense intended.”
dude, you typed the message. they can’t read…….
Why not just wave a pocket watch in front of the customers and hypnotize them with the following : ” I LOVE VISTA “. ?
The real true is that they are afraid to let customers try it themselves because they’ll realize how counter-intuitive Vista is.
A pig by any other name is still a pig.
WOW, I just realized this Mojave thingie is just one big advertisement. They never, ever do anything but praise Vista.
Thanks it. Just lipstick praise. WOW Costs 300 million Huh?
Just wow. As in Wow what a waste.
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Just a thought.
en
On hidden camera, these restaurant patrons don’t know that we swapped the fancy connoisseur brand coffee, with Microsoft Vista brand coffee. Do you think they can taste the difference? Let’s watch and see!!
Yaaawwwwnnnn… —– ….—– …. Oh, I’m sorry – Micro – who?
None of those people are very convincing. They are the normal Jane and Joe Walmart crowd that Microsoft caters to. None of them seem to have any real OS experience, and none of them seem to have been allowed to dig into the OS.
As a professional who has been using Windows since its inception, I would have noticed right away that I was dealing with Vista, or at least something that was not an upgrade.
Here is what they should have done: They should have had the person bring in their own PC and have them, after backing up their system, install and use “Mojave” on it. I think if they did that, the story would be a lot different.
@almux
“This mail confirmation thing is absolutely useless! One perfectly knows that if there’s no MailDemon failure message, the mail HAS ARRIVED period! What else damn confirmation do you need? It’s only one more useless band-width glutton.”
Excuse, me, a notification email is a bandwidth glutton? Gee, there I thought P2P was chomping up ISPs capacities. Thanks for educating me. NOT.
Mail servers can easily be configured not to send mailer-daemon messages when there are problems. Sometimes this is done to save a server from having to respond to millions of spams. There could also be a problem with a mailer-daemon message being sent back to you.
Deciding that a feature like message-read notification is useless is exactly the kind of stupid attitude Peetz was talking about. Apple shouldn’t ignore such things and neither should you.
M$ should have hired some better actors for the Mojave Experiment. Most of them are like really bad soap actors.
MW: likely, as in, “that was real? Not likely”.