“Don’t even get [me] started on its claims about Office compatibility,” Electronista writes. “That Microsoft conveniently omits its own Office for Mac suite makes it clear that truth is far from its top priority here.”
Electronista writes, “The list goes on. But, more than the individual items, the Microsoft ‘PC versus Mac‘ page stinks of the desire to show a brave face in the hopes of turning consumers off to Macs. Admittedly, Windows 7 is a fine operating system that, as I write this, is working quite well. And some of the items Microsoft lists on the page are valid. But that doesn’t mean that the site should exist in the first place.”
Full article here.
What about the whole, “never mention the competition in your ads” rule?
next up, fax vs. tweet, abacus vs. calculus, vapourware vs. ifart
First rule of advertising: never mention your competition.
Second rule of advertising: if you’re the leader, never break rule #1.
“Never mentioned your competitor in advertising”. Sounds like a few folks have forgotten the Mac vs. PC ads Apple ran for years.
It’s amazing how Windows Fanboys blame the Mac vs PC adds for the mass exodus of Windows to Mac users. Windows Vista/7 is the real reason.
@tbsteph PC is a generic term… That doesn’t refer to Dell, Microsoft, HP, etc…
A lot of the fake tweets are hilarious (you can see that they are fake because if you watch long enough they start to repeat – not exactly live like M$ claims). One touts the fact that you can have Winblows 7 automatically change the desktop picture at a set interval. Hmmm….I think came to OS X in 10.2? 10.3? Another one disingenuously implies that you can’t have more than one monitor attached to a Mac.
What about the part regarding the Apple Tax that Ballmer and company were touting so much? Why not compare Apple Tax vs Microsoft Tax.
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Shhhh, we like the free advertisement. Don’t tell Sony either.
Tbsteph,
Apple wasn’t the market leader of course and still only has a fraction of the computer market.
Too bad there was not a link to Microsoft’s PC vs Mac page. I needed a good laugh today.
I like our strategy; I like it a lot.
Pathetic! You mean I have to buy a CABLE to connect my Mac to a TV set? Oh, the horror!
It’s pretty revealing that Microsoft is still focusing attention on the desktop arena with this “Vs.” web page. Granted, Windows is the company’s bread and butter and still a cash cow, but to engage in this type of comparison is almost a tacit admission that they’ve royally screwed up their mobile ambitions, so they’re lapsing into self-congratulation in an area that Apple conceded to them a long time ago, at least in terms of market share. It plainly smacks of insecurity and ego boosting.
Apple has moved on to be poised to dominate the mobile computing landscape with an array of well-designed and well-received products, while Microsoft’s absence of compelling products and a cohesive strategy reveals the internal dysfunction within the company.
Ms will not stop till they have 100% of the market, plain greed.
someone in the forums over there had a really good idea: MS should be welcoming Mac users to buy a copy of Windows instead of trying to alienate them. You know, push Windows’ strengths (essentially added program compatibility). Macs can run Windows too, MS, and you’ll probably make more money selling that retail copy of Windows 7 than you would if a Mac user got hit on the head hard enough to ditch his Mac for a cookie-cutter Windows PC.
Mac VS PC was effective because it highlighted Macs’ clear strengths (including being able to run Windows), so why is MS acting like it’s HP or Dell, trying to get people to stop using a Mac when they could just say “Hey Mac users, did you know Windows will run on a Mac too? Whether with Apple’s Boot Camp or a virtualization suite, enjoy the benefits of Windows without saying goodbye to your beloved Mac!”
Even if it just made Mac users laugh, at least it’d be a respectable and level-headed approach.
Visited the pages yesterday, so many half-truths and lies of omission it’s not funny.
The second “tweet” that came down the wire was hilarious though–it was a link to instructions on how to access defrag options via command prompt.
Whoa, what!? OSX hasn’t had to defrag for almost 5 years now!
Microsoft should rename that web page “Scare Tactic’s” because that is what it is.
@ Jersey_Trader
Here’s the link http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/pc-vs-mac.aspx
My favourite is: Mac’s take time to learn. Given the arcaneness of Windows in all its incomprehensible varieties, that’s a monumental piece of hubris that will byte them severely in Ballmer”s overly adequate posterior.
The art of the Apple competitors is to use negative advertising. It is human nature to be sore and jaded when you are loosing. Sort of like the Motorola ads and last year’s Verizon ads.
You are going to lose if you try to compete with Apple directly. Invent something different for a change!
“Whoa, what!? OSX hasn’t had to defrag for almost 5 years now!”
Actually OS X drives do need to be defragmented as they fill up faster and performance suffers greatly when the drive is over 75% filled.
What Apple did was make the most sized files of 2GB and under find a continuous space free on the drive. Larger files and eventually any file will be broken up to fit any space available if space is starting to run out.
What this does is leaves a lot more “holes” and a drive fills up prematurely if not defragmented. Best way is to Clone the whole OS X partition/drive to a external, test it by option booting and then reverse cloning back using something like Carbon Copy Cloner to free up space. (learn before you burn yourself)
What Apple did was realize a performance boost in the short term at the cost of losing large free spaces on the drive. They figured their customers are mostly small time users, so there wasn’t a need for them to have large spaces free on the drive for large files. Anyway if their drive fills up faster, just means they will be in looking for a new computer sooner as they almost charge the cost of a new computer to replace the drive with a larger one. (pricks)
Windows on the other hand chops up files and places them near the front of the drive regardless, leave a large space at the end. This is poor on performance in drives as it has to find all the little pieces.
So in defragging Windows, it places all the little bits together, the free space is always available for large files.
A lot of Windows users simply do not consider getting a Mac. A Windows PC is the “default” choice. Microsoft thrives on this inertia. But a lot more Windows users are considering a Mac because of their positive experience with iPods, iPhones, and iPads. This stupid web site is not for people who already made the switch; it just encourages current Windows users to consider getting a Mac, by making a comparison. And THAT is a big mistake for Microsoft.
@tbsteph
Yes, but the third rule of advertising is: know when to break the rules.
@Wayne2626
Edit:
MS will not stop till they have 50% of the market!
“Admittedly, Windows 7 is a fine operating system….”
Even if you grant this statement (I don’t), the fact is the Mac OS is far better. Anyway, having a “fine” operating system isn’t so important. For many years, the Mac OS was insanely superior to windows, and yet suffered as a niche with a low-single-digit market share. What’s important is to be the one everyone thinks they need to get. That used to be windows; more and more it is the Mac.
” Available in your favorite color.
Macs only come in white or silver. PCs are available in a full spectrum of colors across a range of price points. “
wow…
As was said, first rule of advertising is, when you are in the market-leading position, NEVER mention the competition! And this Microsoft page is the ultimate example of what not to do.
Windows has over 90% of world’s desktop computers. Macintosh has barely over 6% (worldwide). By talking about Windows and Mac side by side, Microsoft is elevating Mac’s importance to their own level.
The best this page can do for MS is nothing. The worst it can do for Apple is get some Windows users intrigued by finding out that there is this computing platform called Macintosh, and it is supposedly good.
How to destroy Microsoft. Lower Mac prices by $250 each. If everybody bought macs, Microsoft would wither up and die. Can you imagine?
This just came across that Twitter feed:
Yay! Finally managed to fix all the problems with my recently installed Win 7! I can rest my head at ease and tackle that textbox now
ChikaChin from Twitter
LOL!
“Sounds like a few folks have forgotten the Mac vs. PC ads Apple ran for years.”
Mentioning the competition in your ads can smack of desperation and panic … *if* you’re the current market leader.
It can work for you if you aren’t.
I viewed the Microsoft website with all the lies and then I filled out their “how do you like the website” form with a poor rating. I got a server error, go figure!
@ matt-
“Even if it just made Mac users laugh, at least it’d be a respectable and level-headed approach.”
Last thing we’d expect is a respectable and/or level-headed approach from Microsoft, much less a sense of humor, so, snowfight in hell before we see that.
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@ “How to destroy Microsoft. Lower Mac prices by $250 each. If everybody bought macs, Microsoft would wither up and die. Can you imagine?”
That is such a retarded statement. Microsoft LOVES when people buy macs because 99% of them need to run some windows programs and what does that mean??
They buy a copy of Wndows 7 and use bootcamp. Microsoft sells operating systems not PCs they don’t care whether you install it on a dell, an HP or a mac.
I have a macbook and don’t see what the hoopla about OSx is all about, everything takes multiple steps using Osx where I’d just right click and be done on Windows.
I think Windows 7 is far superior to OSx, but I do like the hardware of the macbook.
(Aluminum Macbook + Windows 7 = Utimate Laptop)
@ jim
“Everything takes multiple steps using OS X where i’d just right click and catch that malware immediately on Windows”
There, fixed it.
@Jim,
“I have a macbook and don’t see what the hoopla about OSx is all about, everything takes multiple steps using Osx where I’d just right click and be done on Windows.”
It helps to actually know the operating system you are discussing before posting on a board like this.
Are you aware that you can right-click in OS X? Do you know how to use the trackpad gestures on your MacBook?
To suggest that Windows 7 provides greater convenience than any version of the Mac OS is just silly!
@3monkies
But the ads had plenty of references to Windows.
One tweet said something along the lines of “finished installing Windows 7 and Outlook won’t work”.
I nearly died laughing. Since when has Mail “not worked” after a fresh install?
Uh, Jim?
You can right click on a Mac too.
Dumbass.
MDN Word: “Wrong” As in, you’re wrong, Jim.
Looks like Ballmer is worried about his rounding errors.
“What about the whole, “never mention the competition in your ads” rule?”
Without strong leadership, MS is flailing, breaking all the rules, and wandering very far from their core competency (Productivity Software)…
Why do you clowns attack Jim?
Another failure of copying blindy
@Jim
So much wrong with that statement.
It doesn’t matter that your Mac needs Windows and that will give Microsoft just as much money. Microsoft obviously prefers you get it with your device and not some other forward outside-out OS that makes you reconsider your Windows purchase.
If they really didn’t care and assumed you’d use Boot Camp, then WHY are they making a section of their website dedicated to preventing that hardware decision?
annoymous coward:
“What Apple did was make the most sized files of 2GB and under find a continuous space free on the drive. Larger files and eventually any file will be broken up to fit any space available if space is starting to run out.
What this does is leaves a lot more “holes” and a drive fills up prematurely if not defragmented. […]”
Pardon me? It’s possibly too early in the day for me, but are you suggesting that Macs need third party defragmentation software?
The way I heard, OS X defrags on its own, in the background. Huh?
I really enjoy the wording of that page. The contractions and vagueties target a young demo — who tries to be serious and talks about “stuff”. More a faceplant fail, but at the very least, someone will talk about their page, which we do. Kinda.
This is childish behavior, but when all your venues of actual logic and reason dry up, resort to “but, but, we are better at things ‘n stuff”
Windows Vista and 7 both suck. The repetitive freezing (while no apps are in use) is perhaps the biggest problem I had with both. Could someone please explain why Microsoft continues to add new capabilities without fixing the old ones first? I bought a laptop with 7 in Oct 09 with 3GB RAM and (just to ensure the freezing wasn’t due to RAM size) bought another laptop with 4GB RAM in May. The new one also had the constant freezing problem (in the first week), so I returned it. Even if I left the laptop just sitting there for a few hours doing nothing, I’d return to find it frozen, needing either 30 minutes to start functioning again or a complete restart. Starting and shutting down took minutes instead of seconds even after minimizing boot programs. I feel it necessary to mention that I was an opponent of Apple products for a LONG time. I didn’t think there could be any worthwhile difference from Windows other than look and price. I bought my first Apple product in January this year (iPhone 3GS) and was impressed with how fewer problems I had. I bought the iPhone 4 and was impressed again. I finally forked over nearly $3k and bought the Macbook Pro 17 i7 this month. It took quite a bit of research and trial-by-fire, but I am thoroughly impressed by the Mac OS (Snowleopard) and the Macbook itself. The boot and shutdown times are only about 10 – 20% in comparison to Windows machines. Freezing is a joke at best (I’ve seen maybe 5 seconds on my Mac…..). I applaud Apple for having a product that is RELATIVELY error-minimal. I’m not a FANBOY and will never be. I want a HIGH-quality product and that is always my aim (this is why I chose to go with a wireless router other than the Airport Extreme…..which has quite a bit of negative traffic in the Apple support forum).
“Admittedly, Windows 7 is a fine operating system that, as I write this, is working quite well.”
Relative to WHAT? Certainly NOT relative to Mac OSX. I need only point to security, which continues to be the PLAGUE of Windows, including 7ista.
This Microsoft page, this entire attempt to screw with people’s minds via FUD, is entirely in keeping with anyone in Desperation Mode. Witness the desperation of the Neo-Con-Jobs and their loony toons lies. Microsoft know they’ve had two recent death throws and the medicine isn’t working. Microsoft are desperate. And we get to watch…