Comments on: New Microsoft ads directly target Apple

The software maker tries to show that Windows is not stuffy and old, but rather part of a diverse experience that empowers interesting people across the globe.

[iconoclast04]

Two words: Mojave Experiment.

[Hans-V7]

This is one of the most discussed ad campaigns I ever saw. At least from this perspective it was worth the money so far (for M$). Everybody mentioned, everyody noticed, there is no message till now. Let's see what the future will bring. I am really keen to see the next round. Isn't this what the agency wanted to achieve ?
I feel totally manipulated ..........

[iBuzz]

So, what's this story of Microsoft and their employees that they want to tell? That they've spent the last decade copying other companies' ideas and selling us shoddy, poorly-programmed software with no fit and finish because they knew we had no other choice?

I've already made the switch to Mac, and if I'm ever going to switch again, it will most likely be to Linux. I really like what I see being done with Ubuntu. And, here's a satisfaction percentage for you: forget the 89%; I'm 100% satisfied that I'm NOT using Vista.

[ScaryMonkey69]

Actually, both MS & Apple stole from other companies. MS even bailed out Apple at one time.

If you hate MS so much, you should get rid of any Apple Product since MS helped bail them out at one time.

Gotta agree with you about Ubuntu tho!! Love it!!!!

[solitare_pax]

The truth is - why is Microsoft bothering to run ads? They are the biggest, baddest software company on the planet! If they want better P.R., then they could respond to customer complaints and fix their system, or let us choose between Vista and XP.

Let the hardware giants like HP, Dell and Carl's Computer Hut do the advertising for them - Microsoft would get a better return on their investment by buying up AIG or some other dying Wall Street giant than running ads based on Apple's campaign.

[eltoro2827]

I am a loyal PC user, glad to see MS pumping Vista...hopefully this leads to an awesome WIN7.
I have nothing against apple...tried a mac a couple of times and didnt feel the love.
Hopefully the MS ads are as competitive as the Apple ones.

[VirtualDavid]

If 85% of us own a PC, what more needs to be said?

[bskup0]

If more people watch MTV than the Discovery Channel does that make it better?

[kodilu]

Hey, dudes...to be honest, I do not really care about Ads. Most of the time Ads are misleading. I care more about my own satisfaction and positive experience with a given product.

Listen, "I was a PC way too long"...11+ years. A frustrated Microsoft user, a zombie! I even got certified in Zombism (MCSA+MCSE)...Then I got an iPod two years ago and my mind started clearing out, then I got an iPhone last year and started feeling like detoxication in rehab. After all there were gadgets in this World that actually work without crashing every other moment and in fact do what they were made and sold for. That is when I got my MacBook Pro with OS X 10.5 and finally felt freedom, happiness and satisfaction.

Now I feel like a total idiot, a looser who has lost 11+ years of my life, I feel like a prisoner coming out of prison, where I should not have been in the first place. I feel as if Microsoft has stolen precious time from my life and lots, lots of nerves in gain of stress and frustration. So much money I have spent on PC's and laptops in the hope to get better performance. After all the bottleneck has always been the Windows OS'es and all the other MS crap software.

Today I am a happy MAC user and Apple fellow, not because of the Ads, but because of the products which simply work and deliver. Mac works. Mac is a joy to use! In 5 month I haven't had one disappointment with my Mac, only new pleasant surprises and experiences every day, in contrast of a countless daily frustrations with my Windows's.

Friend and family still ask me for help with their PC's and now I realize I have become allergic to PC and Windows. But there is hope. Most of my friends and family are getting Macs after a few demonstrations. Now to me Apple is like a religion and my Mac is my Bible!

So, forget the ads, get a Mac, because as my grandma says: "AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTORS AYAY!" Now I know, it's true!

Bye

[eltoro2827]

why would your grandma say, "ayay!" , has she been using apple works spell check?

dude i feel you, i tried macs, difrrent versions, and they were all non-amusing, like if i was in hell and the pc brought me closer to god. not trying to be funny or a fanboy...to each his own, if you love your mac, great! more hapiness to you. for me macs brought nothing but useless programs with no gamer support.


dont get me started w/ the ipod.

[Visualdude]

Ok, so what was your occupation when you were a PC and what is it now? Did you ever work with any hardware that was BYOPC? I've been a PC since the days when a Windows network was Windows 3.1 running shared on a Novell network. People keep forgetting that MS is part of the computing experience equation, where Apple has always owned the whole thing in their world.

Eltoro, I hear you on the iPod. I've known more than a couple of people who had their early iPods just dump all the music. Sometimes out of the blue or when they had to push that reset button because it locked up.

[troyrig]

Wow. An Applevangelist.

[coastguarder]

Similar experience here. I bought my first PC in 1990, and then less than 2 years later had to buy a whole new PC to run Win 3.1. I was forever tweaking, overclocking and spending money so that it could run the latest aps/games. Had to buy a whole new comp in 95 when Win95 came out. And again it seemed that at least once a year I was dropping a few hundred dollars trying to ensure my PC ran at an acceptable speed or was compatible with new software or accessories. Same basic story again when Win98 shipped.

The next year I got a divorce and left the PC with my ex. I'd began researching my next computer purchase and included the new iMac and iBook. I liked that the Apple products had both form and function. I loved their distinct styling and they were able to do everything I needed my home computer to do. But I was still unsure about "switching". Until I spoke with a friend of mine who worked in the film/animation industry and used macs both at work and at home. His experience (like mine) was that the Windows PCs that were used at his office needed to be serviced/hacked/tweaked/upgraded/cajoled far more regularly than the macs. So I bought an iBook. I used that daily until 2006. The only money I ever spent on it was when I replaced the CD drive for a CD-RW one and I bought a larger hard drive. When I bought my current computer (intel iMac) I gave the iBook to a friend of mine. At that time it was running the the latest version of OSX and performed adequately. There is not a single PC that I've ever heard of that would be able to match that. Hell I knew people who bought pricey PCs a few months before Vista shipped and had to upgrade all sorts of things to get it to run.

I will never go back to that world, where the complete and utter lack of regard for the needs of your customer seems to be the order of the day. M$ showed their utter contempt for their customers by releasing product after product that was not ready, but because of their stranglehold on the market was the only game in town. Well, that has changed. Intel Macs run Vista better than most PCs, the internet has made the OS less important or people who just want to surf or email, and Apple is gaining market share rapidly as more and more people use their other products and like what they see. Welcome to the other side....kool-aid will be passed out at the break.

[trd1282]

PC users were always right in claiming that competition is good and that they believe in competition. Well guys, you cannot cower in despair now, by that logic the "superior product" mantra could only last so long.

Apple must be doing be doing a whole lot right if people continue buying their stuff, that's capitalism...

(marketing isn't everything, its all about having the next thing)

[mattumanu]

I find it amusing that the only thing that apple fanbois can do with their fancy crapple computers is post about how great they are.

[rdurrua]

Gee....I wonder why that is??

[trd1282]

I would say there is a strong possibility that I can do more with on ANY computer OS than you, mattumanu.

[bskup0]

Except proofread your comments for extra words.

[MPB]

It's just another case of Microsoft copying Apple,

"if you can't innervate just imitate". - Signs of a desperate company.

[rdurrua]

by iconoclast04 September 18, 2008 1:31 PM PDT
Two words: Mojave Experiment.

So Micro.soft (two words that might describe Mr. Gates) is going to recall all copies of Windows Vista and bury them in the Mojave desert?

[craig.knapp1]

1. I expect an OS to do nothing more than run the computer, manage data, and allow software to run. The OS should assist the user manage the most important part of the computer...data..represented by man-hours of scanning old photos, creating databases, spreadsheets, etc. Even Windoze Vistless does nothing to help the user back-up data to all the external USB drives being sold. Most users do not even know where their files are on the drive...help them learn to manage their data.

2. No dual-pane viewer yet despite everyone downloading images from digital cameras, memory card reader, digital camcorders, and multiple external USB drives? PCTools used to have a dual-pane viewer in the mid 1990s for DOS when no one had peripheral devices.

3. Why is the Print Icon hidden by default in Office 2007?

4. Why can't MS Word intuitively follow the paragraph and sub-paragraph numbering conventions initiated by the user, and use the TAB and SHIFT+TAB keys to promote or de-mote paragraphs on the fly like other Word Processors did 10 years ago in MS DOS?

5. Where is the AI that asks a user who browses to a directory 80 percent of the time when opening a file browser if this should be the default directory when opening the browser, instead of smart guys like myself editing the registry to accomplish this mundane task? Where is the AI that will make my computer smarter than the IBM Selectric typewriters we used in the 1970s?

6. Why is MS still in business?

Craig Knapp
[e-mail]

[topgunb2]

why are u still using yahoo mail. gmail is much superior

1. you have more storage space
2. you can tag messages
3. you can have one message in multiple folders through tagging
4. its much faster
5. its ajax based
6 why is yahoo still in business :)

[bskup0]

1. Why do you care if he uses gmail or yahoo?
2. Why do I care that you care?
3. Why is craig knapp editing the registry to achieve what you can do with "create shortcut"..?
4. Why hasn't craig knapp heard of "Control+P"??
5. Why? is also a good band.

[craig.knapp1]

1. I expect an OS to do nothing more than run the computer, manage data, and allow software to run. The OS should assist the user manage the most important part of the computer...data..represented by man-hours of scanning old photos, creating databases, spreadsheets, etc. Even Windoze Vistless does nothing to help the user back-up data to all the external USB drives being sold. Most users do not even know where their files are on the drive...help them learn to manage their data.

2. No dual-pane viewer yet despite everyone downloading images from digital cameras, memory card reader, digital camcorders, and multiple external USB drives? PCTools used to have a dual-pane viewer in the mid 1990s for DOS when no one had peripheral devices.

3. Why is the Print Icon hidden by default in Office 2007?

4. Why can't MS Word intuitively follow the paragraph and sub-paragraph numbering conventions initiated by the user, and use the TAB and SHIFT+TAB keys to promote or de-mote paragraphs on the fly like other Word Processors did 10 years ago in MS DOS?

5. Where is the AI that asks a user who browses to a directory 80 percent of the time when opening a file browser if this should be the default directory when opening the browser, instead of smart guys like myself editing the registry to accomplish this mundane task? Where is the AI that will make my computer smarter than the IBM Selectric typewriters we used in the 1970s?

6. Why is MS still in business?

Craig Knapp
[e-mail]

[the_iceman]

Nice to see Microsoft finally fighting back! Your lame cracks are over little apple

[eyepoker]

Windoes does work, its worked for me for years and years... none of the so called "bugginess" that Apple claims. This debate is ridiculus. I know of a PR company in town that had nothing but Macs. One of the writers that worked there told me about the contstant probelms they had. Constant. The machines/LAN was really messed up. I'm not saying Apple is crap (though, because they instult me with every commercial I'd like to **say** they are), but my point is that computers are computers. They either work great or the suck. And if they suck, its because the user did something wrong. Like download some silly game off the internet that had a secret payload with it. That's not Microsoft's fault, and its not Apple's fault (the same can happen to Apple), its the fault of the uneducated computer user.

Unfortunately, Apple fans seem to be in the uneducated camp. Largely in the uneducated camp. I have my PC sitting here, that I went to Fry's to get - I bought all the components seperately. Built it, installed the OS, applied the patches. And I leave it on 24/7. No problems at all. i work on it, play games, edit video, make music (I have an mBox) - I have no isues. I suppose Windows sucks somehow - Mac-heads insist that my computer is junk, but I just don't see what they're talking about. Windows is a great platform. Period.

[Super2online]

Ok, I just watched the commercial during the airing of The Office. I see where they are trying to go with this, but I'm not sure it's effective. I'm a PC and I have been stereotyped was fine, but the rest of it just seemed too one dimensional. It wasn't funny like the Seinfeld or Mac commercials. It only made the point that lots of people use Windows in all walks of life throughout the world. I totally get that part of the message.

I also get the glasses reference from the Mac commercials but what was the point of making a big deal of it. Lots of people wear glasses, so what? What does that have to do with the differences between Mac's and PC's?

I'm a PC person too but I didn't walk away from this commercial with a point. When you see the Mac commercial there is no doubt about what the main point was. I think Microsoft gets a C- for this effort, it was ok, but there is lots of room for improvement. Try putting a little humor back into it because this issue on the bigger scale of worldly issues isn't that important anyway. Humor makes it memorable. Maybe the Seinfeld ads weren't so bad after all!

[lmartin--2008]

I bought my first computer in 1984 and I avoided purchasing a Mac until 2002 because of the price. But I finally gave up on the Windows/PC after 18 years of continual problems. For the last six years I have enjoyed a computer that always works as it should, a Mac.

[Sabroson]

So .. it is now ... "Life without Walls"

Mmmmm ...

If there are no walls ...

WHAT THE HECK IS HOLDING THE WINDOWS???

No wonder viruses just go right in !!!

[blrhead]

I am a PC, and I have a Virus... = (

[bskup0]

and i downloaded it myself trying to look for pr0n and h4x on the interwebz! I shall buy a mac and keep my same level of computer stupidity and hopefully the Mac will take my hand and teach me how to use a computer without downloading random crap from random places with no virusscan or popup blocker and then being like "***? how did i get this viruz? i just wanted this cool hack program for my MySpace profile! I should buy a MAC they cant get viruses and stuff!"

Congratulations, MAC, you have my roommate on your team now!

[toreilly]

I actually like the Seinfeld Ads. It doesn't matter that the ad doesn't make sense; it is an emotional war: "who can make their customers feel better about their nearly equivalent products?" The ad gives me a reason to feel good about my PC.
Apple has stuck to an aggressive ad campaign that made 90% of the world feel like losers. I hate them for it. I hope that MS brings Seinfeld back regularly with Gates; I find their idiosyncratic duo to be uplifting.