Technically Incorrect

When you've lost the first round in your case against Verizon's persistent and persuasive mockery, who do you turn to?

Luke Wilson, that's who. After all, he starred in "Legally Blonde" and, well, "Jackass Number Two."

Actually, Wilson is lovable. Truly lovable. Perhaps if he'd dressed down a little and Justin Long had suffered an interminable hiatus hernia, Wilson might have got the part of Mac, the Microsoft Mocker.

Instead, he has the slightly more difficult task of persuading the folks who adored him in "Old School" that AT&T's 3G will serve them well on the 3.10 to Yuma.

The creators didn't give him much of a script, as I suspect they wrote it a couple of lattes and a shot of bourbon before this opus was filmed in what looks like the empty space above Victoria's Secret in Santa Monica, Calif.

Luke is forced to stand before a board and prove that AT&T has the fastest 3G network, lets you talk and surf at the same time, and offers you more apps that feature people making strange noises, half-clothed women, and animals that smile when you touch the screen. (Disclosure: slight exaggeration)

Sadly, it all looks a little analog. Luke looks as if he'd prefer to be surfing, as he really doesn't have the tools to make you believe what he's being paid to say.

His hair looks as if it's been hurriedly greased with Czech lard and his face offers a certain hemorrhoidal mien as it offers a little jape at the end of the spot. Yes, a jape about Verizon beginning with "V" and AT&T not beginning with "V." That rumbling you can hear is the collective guffaw from Verizon Central.

Verizon is hurting AT&T with its clinical, delighted unpleasantness. And I fear that before "Legally Blonde 2: AT&T's Revenge" can possibly be effective, the iPhone carrier needs to dramatize its argument rather better than the gospel according to Luke.

Corporations can be heinous places. All day, people wander around, playing politics like so many Lindsay Lohans in "Mean Girls."

So today, one wonders just what machinations are being endured by Simon Aldous, the Microsoft Partner Group manager who was Wednesday quoted by PCR as suggesting that Windows 7 was rather inspired by the simplicity of the Mac OS. Indeed, Aldous declared that Microsoft's new operating system was designed to "create a Mac look."

In what appears to be a somewhat hurriedly written post on the Windows Team blog titled, "How we really designed the look and feel of Windows 7," Microsoft showed that perhaps some of its underwear is currently a little twisted.

The post read: "An inaccurate quote has been floating around the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was 'borrowed' from Mac OS X."

This would suggest that Aldous was, in fact, misquoted.

However, the post, written by Brandon LeBlanc, continued, "Unfortunately, this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed."

"I'm Steve Jobs, and Windows 7 was my idea?"

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Some would therefore now conclude that he was quoted accurately, but he didn't quite get his facts right. This is entirely possible, though one might wonder why he would have made comments with a ring of such endearing honesty.

However, perhaps the most interesting aspect of this Windows Team post is a comment left by someone with the handle "i-dont-do-tat".

This commenter wrote: "I know Simon Aldous, having worked in the same U.K. subsidiary as him for a few years. He's a good guy who, for me, is telling it like it is. He's paying testament to the common view that a Mac is cool and a great template to copy."

As many in the world of business will tell you, copying happens all the time. The competition is scrutinized religiously, and the best articles of faith are taken and sometimes even improved. This happens in every product category.

The "i-dont-do-tat" poster concluded that perhaps honesty might not be such a bad thing: "Denying this to your customers just makes you look stupid because the very look and feel of Windows 7 is desperately trying to look like a Mac OS--just admit it."

Oh, of course one mightn't expect honesty in the mass-market arena. It is a very dangerous place in which to say anything at all. Equally, though, in a tech world interview, perhaps a little nod toward the opposition is not such a bad thing. It might even lull it into a little complacent smugness.

One can only hope that Simon Aldous had a good breakfast Thursday and that he hasn't endured any untoward communications. Unless it's a job offer from Apple, of course, which he should accept only if the company gives him a better deal and appears to come from nicer people.

That's how the corporate world works, you see. Like high school, it's all temporary, so you have to make the most of it while you can.

Sometimes you take a wrong turning in life and, Wednesday, a slight concussion led my eyes to fall upon the pages of PCR.

It is a little more intelligent than my normal reading matter, but I am very grateful for its interview with Simon Aldous, Microsoft's partner group manager.

He was quoted, for example, as saying: "One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it's very graphical and easy to use."

Perfect harmony?

(Credit: CC Esparta/Flickr)

You're waiting for the punchline, right? You know, the one about how he was kidding.

Wait away because he continued: "What we've tried to do with Windows 7--whether it's traditional format or in a touch format--is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics."

I know that such words might cause some entrenched foot soldiers in both of the fanchildren camps to hoot, hiss, sigh and reach for the nearest farming implement.

However, isn't it rather charming to hear someone admit that a competitor's product isn't overly expensive or overly pretentious, but that it has something about it that is good and that real people who buy real products actually appreciate?

Perhaps, like me, you always turn to your left when you board a plane.

Not because first class is that way, but merely to take a quick look at the pilots to see what they're doing and whether there's the faintest whiff of spliff or Johnny Walker wafting from their cabin.

So I am fascinated beyond excitement at what two Northwest Airlines pilots might have been doing on their laptops Wednesday night.

You see, these experienced men, Richard Cole and Timothy Cheney, were piloting a red eye from San Diego to Minneapolis when they seem to have forgotten to take in the final Minneapolis part of the journey.

They were somewhere over Wisconsin when, according to The New York Times, a flight attendant happened to call them, with a vaguely relevant question about the time of arrival. The time of arrival at Minneapolis, a city they had already overflown some time before.

You might imagine that the pilots had fallen asleep. Your suggestion is supported by the fact that they seem not to have responded to repeated entreaties from air traffic controllers for a chat.

Tests have reportedly shown that the pilots were not drunk. In interviews with concerned members of law enforcement, Cole and Cheney reportedly said they were on their laptops discussing a new scheduling system.

You see, they are Northwest pilots who now are under the Delta banner. And Delta does things a little differently.

I suspect you might scoff at this explanation.

You see, they had allegedly pulled out their personal laptops, which is a violation of Northwest policy, Delta policy and, one imagines, the policy of every airline bar. (Except, perhaps, Southwest, whose pilots wear leather jackets, strut through airports as if they have just returned from the Battle of Britain, and always seem to be having a jolly good time.)

We should therefore wonder what Cole and Cheney might have been doing. I have canvassed some of the brightest minds to come up with these suggestions.

One very lucid mind suggested quite simply that they were watching a ballgame. Another offered that they had uploaded a "How to lie effectively" video. And a third feels sure they were watching the classic Hilary Duff video "Wake Up," which I have embedded here for your delectation.

I fear some of you might be tempted towards the heinous thought that they were watching material of a sleazily sultry nature.

I cannot be so cynical. It is simply not in my nature. It seems so obvious to me what happened here that I cannot believe no one with a right mind and a left brain has reached the same conclusion.

Cheney, the pilot, was quite clearly a PC user (I just cannot imagine a Cheney using a Mac), while his Cole-pilot was a firm fanboy of the Mac. Like little boys comparing their trading card collections, they whipped out their laptops so that they could convert each other.

We all know just what a long conversation this will have been. The obstinacy of both sides is often so extreme that the parties might forget they are in the air, in a plane, or even flying a plane.

As Cheney proselytized about Windows 7, Cole counter-punched with some Snow Leopard. And before they knew it, Wisconsin waved at them from below while their passengers wondered what time they might descend from on high.

I feel sure that the next "Get a Mac" ad will feature Messrs. Hodgman and Long as Northwest pilots who want to settle this debate once and for all. By the end of the spot, they will be grappling in the cockpit and the plane will be ready to land in Minsk.

One can dream, can't one? Just as pilots do when they inadvertently fall asleep.

Windows 7 will be breaking down the doors on October 22.

So the advertising has to start round about September 10, right? And, indeed, here it is, making its debut Thursday in the prime-time premiere to which America is no doubt glued, the CW's "Vampire Diaries."

The ad is as safe as certain critics suggested Vista wasn't. There's a girl. And it's not Lauren, the one who isn't cool enough to buy a Mac. No, it's Kylie, the rather younger girl who is frightfully adept at all things digital.

You remember Kylie. She's the one who has a fish called Dorothy. She's the one who e-mails a picture of said Dorothy to her family (well, not Dorothy's family), having color-corrected it using the Windows Live Photo Gallery.

Well, now they've given Kylie the big one. Will she carry it off? Or will she falter like a one-armed juggler on "America's Got Talent"?

Kylie tells us she's found happy words, lots of them. Yes, they are happy, happy reviews of Windows 7--from such august names as, well, CNET. Kylie makes a slideshow so that we can clearly see just how everyone thinks Windows 7 is the not a blister like Vista. As the same tune that tells you there are very few seconds left in an NBA game--yes, Europe's "The Final Countdown"--intones with gay abandon, Kylie says: "I'm a PC and more happy is coming."

I know there are those who will struggle with the concept of "more" happy after Vista. But they will, equally, be grateful that some happy is on the way.

I, of course, am happy as long as everyone else is happy. Even if this ad feels splendidly safe rather than, well, ecstatic.

Back in May, my crystal ball twitched with wonderment at the idea that Microsoft might be feeling a frisson of excitement that Apple had decided to make an ad in response to Redmond's "Laptop Hunters" campaign.

I suggested that Microsoft executives would be dancing with fair glee and abandon.

It seems that, for once, my crystal ball may not have been full of Bay Area fog.

The revelation that Apple's lawyers allegedly called Microsoft to complain about the Laptop Hunters ads has brought much needed amusement to those who have not seen humor in quite some time.

Indeed, Friday, AdAge began to speculate as to whether Apple might become a Microsoft Hunter and drop a little lawsuit on Redmond's charmers.

The report quoted Michael McSunas, an attorney at Chambliss, Bahner and Stophel, who said that legally Apple "would have a leg to stand on."

McSunas continued: "If, indeed, you now can buy a MacBook for under $1,000, then [the 'Laptop Hunters' campaign] would be inaccurate and misleading."

But grinding your teeth and filing suit are two different things.

So McSunas speculated: "Apple seems to have this sort of cool image; I'd be surprised if they'd file suit on something like this...It would be bad publicity and only make people talk about Microsoft being more relevant."

Does having "this sort of cool image" really preclude Apple from suing or at least doing a little more than wearing black and looking superior?

There is precedent for ads being taken off air when the claims within them were no longer accurate. Chrysler, McSunas pointed out, persuaded Ford to remove an ad for its Freestar minivan in 2004.

But the truth is that in any kind of legal action, the PR is more important than the actual legal action.

If there is one area (and, of course, there are more) in which Apple is extremely talented, it is the area of making people feel exactly what the company wants them to feel.

If the company thought there might be PR value in publicly upbraiding Microsoft, you can be sure that it will lay the groundwork meticulously before delivering a nasty two-fingered jab just below the eyebrows.

It is one thing your lawyer calling Microsoft and telling the company to knock it off. It is something slightly different (and a lot more fun) when Redmond tries to make PR capital from your phone call.

Will Apple file suit? Unlikely. But will it let it all just bubble away like a virus on a cheap PC? Somehow, I doubt it.

So here's what having a strategy and taking a stand gets you. Yes, results.

At least that seems to be the conclusion one can reach from new data culled by BrandIndex. BrandIndex is a company that seems to get its kicks from tracking brands every 24 hours. A little neurotic, if you ask me. But you have to make a living somehow.

Anyway, its latest data suggests that Microsoft's "Laptop Hunters" campaign is radically altering value perceptions of PCs.

According to a report in AdAge, BrandIndex says Microsoft's so-called value perception has risen steadily since the campaign began in March, while Apple's has fallen.

Last winter, Apple stood at 70 on the value scale, while Microsoft was at zero. (Zero means that as many people feel bad about a brand as good) Now, Apple has fallen to 12.4, while Microsoft has risen to a glorious 46.2.

Here's the thing that might make you pause for wonder: the people who seem to be most influenced by the Microsoft campaign are aged 18 to 34.

Brand Index's global managing director for polling service YouGov told AdAge: "Apple had a pretty big advantage, historically, when we look at our data. Apple did a great job of putting Microsoft on the defensive. It made them look old, stodgy, complicated to use and unhip. But Microsoft has started to hit back, and younger folks are more cost- or value-focused."

I love research. I really do. It provides great fodder for discussion, cogitation and, ultimately, fireplaces.

The thing I am slightly more fascinated by is sales.

Currently, it may well be that younger people, who just might have less disposable income than those slightly older, are ragingly cost-conscious. (I have embedded a video that shows one young person's purchasing plight.) So when a survey person calls or e-mails them, they will give ragingly cost-conscious arguments.

This doesn't necessarily mean that their attitude while answering interesting existential questions will mirror their behavior when they come to buy.

Far more significant is the fact that Apple decided to respond to the Laptop Hunters campaign with an ad of its own. The competition always knows more than the researchers.

Microsoft has so far only pointed to a 10 percent increase in preference for PCs since the campaign was launched. When accurate and consistent sales figures emerge, they will be very interesting.

For those of you who are interested in what the slightly older folks thought, well, in the 35 to 49 age group, Microsoft went up a couple of weeks after the campaign launched, but now Apple has regained its lead.

Do these older people have more money or more sense? I will leave that to you to decide.

Scotland seems to have cornered the YouTube market for singing wonder.

After Susan Boyle's hair and talent exploded on YouTube, may I introduce you to Brendan MacFarlane.

Brendan, from Perth, Scotland, is 11. He is a very sweet little boy. He likes to sing Ray Charles songs. Oh, and he's taking his mother to court.

Brendan, you see, has been invited to appear on "Maury's Most Talented Kids." This is a show which has, until now, escaped my attention.

But I am assuming that it is a show on which small, talented people do large, talented things, while the chap who became terribly famous by asking slightly older people to take paternity tests and shout a lot live on air, looks on, enchanted.

Brendan lives with his father, George. The parents experienced an unhappy breakup. And his mother, Angela White, has Brendan's passport, which he rather needs as "Maury's Most Talented Kids" is filmed in New York.

However, Ms. White doesn't seem entirely keen to hand the passport over. Worse, the BBC reported that she didn't turn up at the court hearing last week because, she said, she had an upset stomach.

The case will not be heard again until next month, although Ms. White has been asked to being a medical certificate to prove that it was, indeed, her stomach that was playing up.

Oh, Brendan. Don't believe what anyone tells you. The road to stardom has never been paved with yellow bricks.