First hints of Microsoft’s fight back ads appear
section: microsoft, for your questions: KezNews forum, 22.7.2008
If this is going to be the overall message of Microsoft’s much-vaunted new $300 million ad campaign, it might be money well spent.
According to the folks at LiveSide, the first ads in the new campaign were previewed at Microsoft’s employees-only Global Exchange conference last week to rave reviews. As Tim Anderson astutely noted the other day, “Vista is now actually better than its reputation. That’s a marketing issue.” Microsoft’s biggest challenge is to get would-be customers to set aside whatever preconceptions they have and listen to its pitch for Vista. Aligning its most vocal Vista critics with the Flat Earth Society is a clever way to get people’s attention.
But the bigger job, that of actually changing people’s minds, will be easier said than done. Apple has largely defined Vista’s public image so far with its devastating “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads. Responding directly to those ads is a losing tactic. Largely thanks to John Hodgman, the humor bar is set extraordinarily high. Any kind of response ad would legitimize the claims in those Apple ads and run the significant risk of being seen as lame and uncool.
And there’s no sign that anyone in Redmond is going to go down that road. Instead, clicking the link on the “World is flat” add leads to a page headlined, “Windows Vista: Look how far we’ve come.” The copy beneath leads off with a sheepish admission:
When Windows Vista debuted in January 2007, we declared it the best operating system we had ever made. “Windows Vista is beautiful,” The New York Times raved. It’s humbling that millions of you agree.
But we know a few of you were disappointed by your early encounter. Printers didn’t work. Games felt sluggish. You told us—loudly at times—that the latest Windows wasn’t always living up to your high expectations for a Microsoft product.
source:
blogs.zdnet.com
Send link 2 friend | Permalink
MORE RELATED ARTICLES:
Microsoft hints at "porn browsing" feature in IE || How should Microsoft fight Vista criticism? || Gates hints at Windows 7 features || What do Xbox Live problems say about Microsoft’s back-end infrastructure? || Microsoft hits back at Google with Live Search News
Comments(7)
so, it's better than shit, i guess that means it stinks less......
for the most part i find vista on my work laptop and home pc to be fine. the biggest
annoyance/challenge i have had are the hardware manufactures releasing mediocre drivers or
no drivers at all for months after the launch of vista, resulting in generic drivers being
used, thus poorer performance and stability issues. now that many months have passed and
sp1 is out, it finally works (more or less) as it should (if your hardware is supported
that is .... which happens to be the real issue).
thats not even the fault of microsoft, beta was out for how long and how many oem's didn
even bother to write new drivers or take the time to learn what was actually different.
many of the flaws that 1st were so big were cause by exactly this, poor quality drivers,
causing poor performance
it appears microsoft is trying to eat humble pie and go for the "honesty" approach. i
would like to think with the launch of vista people are beginning to see what a bloated
and bug ridden piece of software windows is. microsoft never got the message that all
users want is a working,compact and reliable os. they, for the most part would prefer
that to all the silly bells and whistles that it currently has.
in recent weeks i
have been asked 10 times to instal a linux distro on friends machines. they are not
interested in upgrading or messing about with their current rig to get vista running, and
they are fed up of watching with dismay as their harddisk light flashes repeated for
minutes at a time when all theyve done is try to create a new folder.
being a
linux fan for many years, even i still see the need for a ms os, but with linux & windows
installed on my system, i have found over the recent months that i have been booting
windows less and less.
most users simply want internet access, wordprocessing
and a few graphics/digital photo packages. linux offers all this, completely free and
wrapped up in a much more compact environment.
i have yet to recieve a
telephone call about a problem from any of my friends with linux installed and i think
that says alot.
60ish % dont want to go to vista? i can believe it. ive yet
to meet anyone who wants it and those that do have it (not by choice) have nothing but
complaints.
you just met one
i use vista 64 with no issues at all... i had to learn some
things but i'm a smart guy and realize in this world nothing stays the same for long and
dealt with it. i wouldnt go back to xp unless i was paid.
i beta tested vista early on. of course there bugs and stuff. since final public issue,
have had few problems. no one seems to remember when xp came out, and windows 2000, all
had driver and hardware issues! i had to replace several video cards mostly. sure a
little frustrating. but the results were very stable machines/systems. an on the
mentioned systems, as patches issued to address issues, stability increased. when one
considers the almost infinite possible configurations of hardware (i.e. moboards and
related equipment, peripherals, etc), as well as softwares of almost infinite varieties,
age, platforms, every sort of development language, actual spoken languages, varying
abilities of the users (novice to knowledgeable, to know-it-all and beyond. no to mention
a part of the technical community that well meaning tries to help with bettering the os's
by finding flaws in the code. then there is the other part of that community that
exploits the flaws with trojans, etc and myriad viruses; for personal gain, for political
reasons, because they dislike-all-the-way-to-hate microsoft, or (the worst reason in my
opinion) simply because they can and don't care what the resulting effect or damage is
caused.
my opinion is microsoft is not perfect. however, given the essentially
infinite possible hardware and software setups as well as the continual attacks on the
operating systems, i think they do a remarkable job on provoding a software product
(operating systems as well as many, many applications) and keeping them repaired and
working. i appreciate it all!!!
as far as apple goes, i have many friends and
associates and who have gone from "pc" to mac et al. to a person, they have many, and
in some cases more, problems with prioprietary systems, in costs and reliability, etc.
it's easier to clamp down and restrict hardware and software configs. so overall,
historically and currently, my hat goes off to microsoft. apple is decent (now), but
stand on system merits, don't build reputation by tearing down the competitor.
lastly, then done ;). i agree with the previous post by "zyroc..." having worked on
and with windows since 3,0 days, and ms dos before that, and have used every ms os since,
i love vista. don't understand this romantic notion towards xp. i too would not
willingly go back to xp, anymore than to win95, or 95me, 98, or win2000.
qoute zyrocenus "you just met one
i use vista 64 with no issues at all... i
had to learn some things but i'm a smart guy and realize in this world nothing stays the
same for long and dealt with it. i wouldnt go back to xp unless i was paid."
im sure
youre not alone in that viewpoint either, i said "ive" "yet to meet" since we are on a
worldwide forum im sure i could find many posts like yours.
we all use an os in
our own little world be it for business or pleasure. i presume that the problems that
myself and my collegues encounter are due to us requiring different things from an os.
what i have a problem with, is as stated above why should major parts of xp be
re-written and modified in such a drastic way as to provide massive instability for users.
i cannot understand why xp could not simply be tweeked to incorporate new technology and
specs. xp for the most part is relatively stable. as ive said before i wont bash ms
because i still use the os.
my question was, and still is, why did all the
silly extra bells and whistles be added to vista when at the end of the day all people
want is a reliable and stable operating system.
it appears to me that ms just
throws in extra code for the sake of asthetics and features nobody needs, to be detriment
of the end user who has to constantly upgrade his/her pc to just keep up with the os.
for me the os should be as small and functional as possible, it should not dictate
when you upgrade your pc. i wonder what specs we would have as standard nowadays if ms
had held this theory from the days of windows 3.1
imo vista wants to be the
answer to everything for everybody. ms dont want 3rd party developers selling softare to
you, so they stuff windows full of features to try and cover everything. great idea in
principle, however with every release the binary slug that is windows, gorges itself on
higher and higher specs.
puppylinux is a functional os in 88mb and if it had
the financial backbone of ms and was used in the mainstream, i wonder if people would be
constantly shelling out money on upgrades to keep up?
everyone seems to forget
vista is an os, it should sit silently and unasumingly in the background, freeing up as
many system resources as possible so that the software you need to run does so as smoothly
as possible.
No new comments are allowed for this article.
For your questions use our KezNews Forum
Better than it's reputation
By Renazonceman on 23.07.2008 - 01:07