Electronista reports, “Microsoft has released a new ‘Scroogled’ ad, enlisting the Pawn Stars reality TV crew to deride a Chromebook as a worthless ‘brick.'”
“The online video begins with a woman entering a pawn shop to sell her Chromebook for cash to buy a ‘ticket to Hollywood,'” Electronista reports, “however shop co-owner Rick Harrison explains how the device is ‘not a real laptop’ because it ‘doesn’t do much at all’ when disconnected from a Wi-Fi network.”
“The Pawn Stars ad goes a step further than mere criticism of basic capabilities, focusing also on the privacy theme of Microsoft’s earlier videos,” Electronista reports. “‘When you are online, Google tracks what you do so they can sell ads; that’s how you get Scroogled,’ says Harrison. ‘Google is always trying to find ways to make more money off your personal information. This Chromebook hardware makes it even easier for them.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The funniest part? This video is in wide release on Google’s YouTube.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dale S.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Microsoft selling anti-Google merch – November 22, 2013
Scroogled: Microsoft blasts Google over ‘nefarious’ uses of Android users’ personal information – April 9, 2013
Puh-leeze! How desperate can a company get?
ROTFLMAO!
That was pretty funny. I liked it.
At least they mentioned iTunes. So it sounds like they are going after Google and didn’t attack Apple. So that’s good.
Yeah I liked it too. Great seeing Google on the receiving and as they richly deserve it.
It is pretty funny.
Desperate is right. Google’s Chromebook should not be a target for M$. It should be under the radar for them. Do they think/believe they’ve already lost to Apple and there is no hope there. Not worth the effort? Too funny.
It is actually a pretty shrewd move. They can truthfully bash a Google product as a lead-in to bash the entire Google business model. They also coined a perfect term for the holidays that people will remember and chose a spokesperson that will appeal to many as being fairly knowledgeable about the value of a wide variety of products.
Because the Acer Aspire one and similar netbooks a few years back, selling at full laptop prices, were just sooooo much better.
/s
Pretty amazing that he mentions Office and iTunes as regular applications that run on a laptop.
Is M$ trying to put on the white hat and become the enemy of Apple’s enemy?
I think their real issue here is that a Chromebook doesn’t run real applications and there for doesn’t require Office. This is a double loss to M$.
But it can run the my-gross-lost or-if-is 365web apps
So it is only a one loss
Must be the engineers writing the jokes for M$?
Incredibly, “advertisements” no longer advertise your own crappy product. Tip for Microsoft – why not make a decent OS and tell the world about it! Oh that’s right, you’ve not been able to do that for the past 30 years so no point trying now!
By the way – the Surface isn’t a real tablet either. Get an iPad!
Google deserves the criticism it is finally getting.
It makes little sense to universally deride Microsoft. For many years now, it’s the only competition Apple has had, and despite horrid UI choices, the underpinnings of Windows have indeed been improved in substantial ways.
Going all the way back to the 80’s, you can’t say that the NT kernel didn’t have some really good things going for it. Sure, unscrupulous business practices put MS in the near-monopoly OS position that it still enjoys, but objective technological comparison shows that Windows really was better than the 3rd place and lower OSes that hung around until the late 1990’s. In some ways, Windows are better than Macs. XP and Win7 actually offered relatively stable, affordable, everyman computing with the customization and enterprise versatility that Macs have simply not offered consistently. The Mac may be our favorite GUI, but even the latest and greatest OS X has had its issues. It wasn’t until 10.2 when it got truly good. 10.6 remains arguably the most stable and efficient with least non-value-added GUI fluff. And to this day, Mac trails Windows in some areas: Apple ended up following Windows for file protocol (SMB), email handling, etc. HFS+ is getting dangerously dated. …and Apple doesn’t even offer many of the handy enterprise-ready tools with acronyms that the average fanboy can’t even decipher without the use of an online search engine that can’t be named.
Infoworld also points out the glaring issue that Mac fans often fail to acknowledge:
“OS X Mavericks has a few UI flaws that undercut its superb ease-of-use. Apple has been monkeying with its application file services since OS X Lion, so there are now three distinct UIs and services for saving files: one for traditional apps, one for Versions-enabled apps, and one for iCloud Documents-compatible apps. It’s confusing. OS X Mavericks doesn’t do anything to rationalize these differences. Also, though Apple encourages broad usage of the iCloud service, it doesn’t work with Apple’s Mail program. Adding or saving attachments becomes a rigmarole as you transfer the files from iCloud to your Mac’s local drive or vice versa. (iCloud is available only in apps obtained from the Mac App Store, so most Mac apps can’t use it.) ”
Lest the immature readers on these forums be tempted to knee-jerk react with rude accusations of trolling, Infoworld’s OS X 10.9 vs Win8.1 goes on to give the Mac OS the better final score, for many reasons we all know. But that doesn’t make the Mac perfect, nor the second best personal computer OS be derided unfairly. Both are great technical accomplishments that need significant future refinement.
Anyone who thinks Vista or Win 8 is anything near the latest OS X has his/her head up where the sun don’t shine.
XP is finally useful and Win 7 was an improvement but, being right every other OS, just does not cut it.
I agree about the file handling.
MS rudderless and firing off torpedoes in every direction looks pretty standard for a sinking ship
After all the years of being lampooned in the ‘I’m A Mac, I’m A PC’ commercials Microsoft didn’t learn a thing about being funny.
Churro?
301 views
all negative comments
4 to 1 thumbs down’s
(interesting that there are more thumbs downs than views)
Does gooogol manipulate the counts and comments on youtube videos?
Abso-friggin-lutely!
I like the hot chick!
The once who can’t act? She might be good for other things though…
The one who can’t act that is. My kingdom for an Edit button!!!
Nicely done!
If it was a surface RT, she’d be royally fscked as it wouldn’t pay for the bus fare home.
Should someone point out that iTunes doesn’t run on Windows RT?
I have no love for Google Chromebooks, but sounds like MS is admitting that their ARM-compatible version of Windows 8 doesn’t run on a “real” device, either (another masterstroke of ineptitude on the part of that disjointed company’s marketing).
Well, daughter is like mom — clueless! But I must say, I do like it — focuses right in on the silliness and uselessness of a Chromebook.
Electronistica didn’t discuss how this latest skirmish is just part of a strategic feint by Microsoft to devalue the Google brand whilst positioning their own search engine, Bing, as being the secure alternative to Google search, particularly to schools.
Looks like apple ad team made this video, the ad is not full of inconsistencies like all the typical Microsoft ads. Weird.. and fun, Bravo Microsoft, you finally nailed.
How can a company that spends Billions of $ on advertising be so bad at it? I’m actually feeling sorry for Microsoft right now, Microsoft needs an intervention before it does any more self harm.
Very significant that Microsoft mentions iTunes. Remember Microsoft bailed out Apple once, maybe they’re hoping Apple will return the favour soon!
Agree: is this the first time Microsoft has ever acknowledged in public that iTunes even exists, much less that most everyone (PC or Mac) has it installed?
Forget music/video management…although the ship sailed on Windows Media Player many years ago. And forget the entire store, although Microsoft has nothing remotely equivalent. Apple sells tens of millions of iOS devices EVERY MONTH, and the majority of them are being connected to the Windows version of iTunes. None of those customers could do it with a Chromebook, and doubtless wouldn’t be the target market for one in the first place.
Maybe Microsoft is so desperate for relevance that they’re acknowledging this reality by mentioning iTunes. If so, its shaky ground: WinRT can work off the grid and can run some ARM version of Office…yet its still seems only good for robotically dancing around with and mindlessly clicking the lid while wearing skinny jeans.
M$ NEVER bailed out Apple. M$ bought shares, 150 million I believe, and M$ made lots of money on the deal there troll boy.
That we pretty clever for a Microsoft Ad.
Screwggoled…is that the same as Winscrewed?
I enjoyed the Google-bashing (“but “Office?” Who cares?..), but that was still an embarrassingly lame commercial.
Oh, so it’s not a laptop unless it runs Windows. Good to know, MS.
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