Poll: Seinfeld and Vista, what gives?

News.com Poll

Seinfeld and Vista, what gives?
Should Jerry Seinfeld be the operating system's new pitchman?

Not that there's anything wrong with that.
What's the deal with using a '90s icon, Microsoft?
Yada, yada, yada...

View results

As CNET News reported earlier Thursday, Microsoft has tapped Jerry Seinfeld to star in a $300 million marketing campaign aimed at countering negative perceptions of its oft-maligned Vista operating system.

The comedian, best known for his eponymous NBC sitcom, will reportedly get $10 million for the campaign, which is expected to play off the phrase "Windows, Not Walls," and to stress the connection between people and ideas.

Comedians Will Ferrell and Chris Rock were also considered for the new advertising spots, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported details of the marketing push. The paper said Seinfeld will appear alongside former Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates in some ads.

But is a '90s sitcom star really the best celebrity to help make Vista cool? Tell us what you think in our poll. And if Seinfeld shouldn't be the master of the Vista domain, who should be? Let us know in our TalkBack section.

[J-Hawaii]

A Borg drone.

[Dirk VanNerden]

I think the cast from "The Office" would make a lot of sense. Also a bit more current. Have individual ads featuring Jim, Pam, D'white, and Michael.

I like Jerry though.

Other than that...

maybe Andre Dice Clay?

[old_roar]

Your suggestion reminds me of IBM's recruitment of the cast of M*A*S*H, which had already concluded its run, to shill for its PS/2 computers. (That didn't turn out well, as I recall.) I also recall that the original pitchman for IBM's PC/DOS computers was Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp character. Is there a pattern here?

[Mike Malone]

Hey now! Jerry had Mac computers on his desk! Check it out. Looks like he's the first guy to switch from Mac to Windows.

[anirudhn]

I guess they will cast Jerry as the "Mac Guy". :-)

[MSisAjoke]

I suppose that for $10 million, I just might lie on national TV and tell everyone that I switched to a PC. Yeah, right.

[catch23]

I've helped lots of people switch from Mac to Windows.
They got tired of paying Ferrari prices for Pinto parts.
Maybe 10% go back. The rest have been happy with the change.

[7aji88]

As Dirk said, using the cast from "The Office" would be funnier and makes more sense since they are in an office, still I think HP once used Jerry once in their ads.
Also does Microsoft really needs an advertisement for Windows?? I mean what are Dell, HP, and other manufacturers doing when they place the Windows logo in every ad they have?
Even if Windows "sucks", it will needs Apple, Sun, all of Linux distros to put a giant ad campaign, then Microsoft needs to place their own ads on TV

[The_Decider]

No amount of marketing is going to get informed, thinking people to like Vista.

That will take effort and a competent development team that understands how to create a trimmed down, slick OS. MS only puts in an effort when they need marketers to polish their turds, and it is obvious that they don't have the right people in the the right places.

[tshirt2]

You are underinformed and apparently prejudiced as well. Vista is a solid operating system. MS has done the right thing in the development, now they have to make up for the bad name they have gained over the years.

Jerry is an excellent choice. He is very good in revealing subconscious decisions and many people have been doing exactly that when they go for Apple with the ipod-iphone-macbook trio. Apple makes flimsy hardware and poor software with excellent user interface. I am just happy that their strategy of taking the software as prisoner will always keep them from domination of the OS market. Linux is good for us though, I wouldn't mind if it took over.

[dude7895]

You are obviously an uninformed moron. Vista runs fine now. It was just when it came out that it had problems. MS did the same thing with xp. The only differences is mac drones like yourself that have been brainwashed by apple into believing anything against apple is crap.

[mydws]

I agree, Anyone From THE OFFICE would be more relevant to my internets.

For example, Rainn Wilson, originally from Woodinville, (20 minutes from Redmond) plays Dwight Schrute on "The Office" would have been a the perfect person on so many levels!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msNbP5QW02U

Self-Proclaimed "Geek" Rainn Speaks at University of Washington:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC-xv-c9poU

[mydws]

I agree, Anyone From THE OFFICE would be more relevant to my internets.

For example, Rainn Wilson, originally from Woodinville, (20 minutes from Redmond) plays Dwight Schrute on "The Office" would have been a the perfect person on so many levels!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msNbP5QW02U

Self-Proclaimed "Geek" Rainn Speaks at University of Washington:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC-xv-c9poU

[Austyg]

A joker for a joke . . . cosmic karma never fails.

[awild1]

I'm not sure what to think about Microsoft lately. At one side their saying "don't worry we are working hard on windows 7", but at the other end their advertising up a storm all the sudden for Vista. All though I suppose they had to do something fast to repair the negative perception the "Mojave Project" brought about. Even so, I definitely feel like is too little, too late, to start up an aggressive ad campaign to rekindle profits. Money that Microsoft probably could have had if they had done a better job advertising to dispel negative buzz from day one.
I wish Microsoft would make up its mind: Either decide to fully support Vista, advertise it, repair its reputation, and have a happy product cycle, OR Work your butts off to get Windows 7 up and at least beta testing by 2010 like they are speculating.
I feel like there is a great number of windows users who still cant make up their minds to upgrade or sit on XP till Windows 7. I am one of them, I am not convinced that Vista is really worse than XP when it first came out, BUT I most certainly am not going to plop down money for Vista if a new OS is coming out in half the time that Vista did.

[Lerianis]

Negative perception? Totally the opposite, it showed how idiotic people were about Vista and how much they were relying on word of mouth from other people (usually with their own agendas) on not switching to Vista. Frankly, I am typing this post on Vista right now, and I have to say that (aside from problems I have created myself that are going to necessitate a re-install of Vista Home Premium)..... I have been DAMN happy with Vista, more than I ever was with XP MCE or XP Home.

[DrtyDogg]

Go ahead and wait until Windows 7 but keep in mind that Windows 8 will only be 3 years behind it, as that is the stated goal, a 3 year release cycle. I wasn't sure about upgrading until I bought my new laptop that had Vista preloaded on it. Now I'm upgrading my desktop too, because I like it better.

[MarkarM]

The joke will be on Microsoft - they still don't get it. They should take the $300 million and spend it on programmers to give us a better OS. The news also says Gates will be in the ads with Seinfeld - once they do that, I'd love to see the Apple followup ads - they'll be an easy target. Frank Caliendo would have been interesting - Seinfeld is old news, sorry.

[iBuzz]

Seems to me that Jason Alexander would have been a better choice. After all, Vista is the George Costanza of operating systems.

[hal Summers]

I think Homer Simpson would be a good pitch man for Microsoft.

Every time he tries to launch Vista with a new printer, camera or other device we get to hear him say, "Doh!"

[Lerianis]

Have you ever tried to launch Vista with a new printer, camera or other device? If it is younger than 3 years old, and sometimes as old as 5 years old, it just WORKS. You plug it into the USB port, and it WORKS, immediately in almost all cases.

In most cases on my machine, it automatically searches the internet and the computer and installs the drivers without any intervention on my part.

[DrtyDogg]

@Lerianis
That's how it works for a large majority of people using Vista. This guy's roomate's, cousin's, nephew's, next door neighbor couldn't get his dot matrix printer to work though, so he hates Vista.

[deanrd7]

Two obvious candidates that fit Vista perfectly: Homer Simpson or Charlie Brown

[Motyoj]

I'd rather see Kramer in the ad. He could be the Mac and of course Mr. Gates would be the PC. You see only weirdos use Macs.

[magicmaster]

Microsoft, why should people upgrade to Windows Vista when Windows 7 is slated to release in the next two to three years?

[Lerianis]

Because Vista is much safer and more security conscious than Windows XP Home, Pro or MCE is. Frankly, I upgraded my parent's computer to Vista Home Premium after having numerous viruses and spyware get on their XP MCE machine, and since I did that..... no viruses whatsoever.

None at ALL.

[Renegade Knight]

7 probably won't work any better than Vista. Why wait for something that's going to suck?

[workshopmusic]

I agree that the budget would be better spent on improving the OS they have... why not clean up XP, make modest advancements and call it Windows 7... and eliminate all the confusing product levels and tiers. The proliferation of "editions" are a sure sign of a product in decline.

The "downgrade to XP" phenomenon is something that Microsoft should really stop and listen to. I also have a new HP tower which came with both XP and Vista install discs. Vista has yet to be installed.

It appears that Vista is an answer to a non-existent request. Users never wanted, it seems, to upgrade the Windows interface to emulate the Mac OS X look.

The Vista eye candy is nice but in a curious way it typifies what went wrong... dealing with surface stuff and not overhauling the system to the degree it needs.

Ironically Microsoft might have done better by throwing out even more legacy stuff, possibly causing more pain on the customer side in the short run.

Apple bit this particular bullet by going to a UNIX-based system, stopping development and eventually compatibility as well with the old stuff... to great outcry at first... but now they have a solid system with a future path.

Since Microsoft seems to be on Apple's heels in the area of user interfaces, maybe they could consider emulating the OS strategy as well... move to some *NIX variant and build a layer for applications to run in.

[compudoc318]

yeah, lets keep an old system and not move forward, lets keep getting viruses, and lemme guess, youre another cheap one who says, i like my p2 cpu with 512 ram...lol, its progress, and im in I.T. and own a computer repair shop so dont tell me how vista sucks, ive used it since day one with no issues, heck i have an 85 yr old customer on it for over a year with no issues.....

[Norseman]

Who would be more appropriate to represent Microsoft than Seinfeld? Easy. Bozo the Clown.

[F.F.]

Vista? A comedian pushing the product? IS THIS A JOKE? :)

[Sumatra-Bosch]

Does it matter?

Ballmer could take $300 million in $1000 bills, pile it in the parking lot in Redmond and it would not make a lick of difference. People will buy PCs at BestBuy and grin and bear it, then borrow XP install discs from Cape Verdean guys that work with their sisters-in-law.

MSFT might as well license clips of Marty Feldman running around like a maniac or just broadcast Ballmer headbutting busses. Everyone knows Vista is worthless. It's like trying to run a promotional campaign for AIDS.

[Lerianis]

Funny.... I haven't borrowed a XP installation disk...... In fact, when the guy at Best Buy asked me if I wanted to downgrade the computers I bought for my daughters, I told him "BLEEP No!" Vista is the better operating system between XP and Vista.

From my experiences, testing on a clean XP system and clean Vista system as well..... the Vista system is anywhere from 10 to 20 times faster than the XP system, in almost all cases, especially with networking. On my old XP MCE system that my parents used, I barely got 50KBps speeds on the internet. Install Vista on the same machine..... 2 MBps speeds and sometimes, even faster than that.

[sanenazok]

I don't remember a single Vista ad on broadcast media. There may have been one but it could have been for a pc maker. Who is in the commercial doesn't really matter, what matters is whether the ad is well written. The product that it's advertising isn't that important either, everything that's advertised sells better. It's the reason why advertising is done. Apple is really good at marketing (that and denying problems).