In many countries around the world, there are people who have come out and claimed Windows 7 as being their idea.
Microsoft chose to reveal in its new advertising that the operating system is one that came about because the people demanded it, because the people created it.
And in the process, they hope Windows becomes the people's brand rather than their injury-prone Elton brand.
Yet, as the week of the launch winds down and the hard graft of daily selling begins, it seems instructive to examine just a couple of nuances in the campaign.
Here are two spots, one from Australia and one from the U.S. Both feature individuals who claim that the Snap feature of Windows 7 was their idea.
In the U.S. version, we see Jack, who seems to be a slob. Baggy t-shirt, baggy jeans and, who knows, a baggie in one of the pockets.
Jack claims he had the idea for Snap in the shower. Jack wears his glasses in the shower.
Jack's wife is glumly tolerant and reveals that not only did Jack immediately inform Microsoft of his fine solution, but that he also had to tell his mother. Being American, it seems, means having issues.
By contrast, there's Kevin. Kevin is an Australian who claims that it was, in fact, he who invented the Snap feature.
Kevin is seated in a rather nice waterfront cafe. His shirt is pressed, his gaze determined. Kevin reveals that he got an early look at the streamlined Windows 7 and this forced him to cogitate to great depths.
Unlike Jack, who thinks naked in the shower, Kevin thinks topless on the beach. And the thought he had was "streamlinier." Yes, a new word to define just how much more streamlined Windows 7 is with the Snap feature.
Kevin is so convinced of his genius that he believes the product should have been called Windows Kevin.
So which of them do you believe? Was it Jack's idea? Or Kevin's?
Is Windows 7 the invention of a slobby chap whose first thought is to tell his mother how clever he is? Or is it the creation of the rather slick Kevin who believes not only that he is rather clever, but that the product should bear his name?
The Ordinary Joe or the Extraordinary Egotist? Which of those encapsulates Windows 7 best?
Bill's friend, the one with whom he was going on a motorbike holiday in Tasmania, suddenly died. Bill, being upset and Australian, went out and got drunk.
A cab dropped him off back at his house. But he collapsed before he could get to his front door.
So along came a friendly Google StreetView camera car. The Australian version of the service was to be launched August 4. So the Googler had a lot of filming to do.
He shot the prostrate Bill who was lying on his back, his feet sticking out into the road.
This was a click and run.
(Credit:
CC re-ality)
The driver didn't stop to see whether Bill was all right. He didn't even get out of his camera car to move Bill's feet away from the curb. Like a TMZ.com paparazzo, his deadline seemed to be more important than something that could have been a dead body.
Did his shot of the beFostered Bill make the first edition of Google StreetView Australia? Too right, mate.
Bill (he doesn't want his last name plastered all over the place as well as his drunken pose) was as sanguine as the Australian Prime Minister, who, when he was seen getting drunk in an New York strip club, remarked: "I think any bloke who's honest about their lives can point to times in their lives when they've got it wrong."
Speaking of his dead friend, Bill said: "'I know what he would have done if I left --he would have partied, too. That's what I would've wanted him to do, so that's what I did with some friends."
However, he added: "I wasn't really thinking there would be someone driving by with a video camera on the roof filming me, either."
Who was the anti-Samaritan driving that Google camera car? Are his parents made of metal? What sort of instructions did he have? Why didn't he get out to help? And why didn't anyone at Google Australia notice that there was, well, a body lying in the street? (Google only removed the image after Bill's story came to light)
I know that people make jokes about Google being the quintessential engineering company. And that is something this blog will never stoop to (being an engineering company, that is).
But I hope you, too, would like to know how the company reacted to one of its drivers leaving a man lying in the street while he filmed him.
Or could it be that this driver was, in fact, yet another robot with vision problems?
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