New MicroSoft Ad Campaign Bitch Slaps Apple

[The Newswire]

Back when I worked in other people's offices, I used to refer to myself as technologically bisexual. I was equally comfortable on a MAC or a PC. I mean, most of my work was in Photoshop, PowerPoint, and PageMaker, with the occasional call for MicroSoft Word, Quark, or Illustrator. Once in the blue moon, I'd need to use some more esoteric software, but it was generally something available on both MAC and PC. And once I was inside the software, it was fundamentally...

Read the full article

[episode allah]

I have no respect for microsoft since vista...

[ForrestBlack]

I have no respect for microsoft since vista...

I do find a lot more people who claim to be very down on Vista than I seem to find people who have actually used Vista, which kind of raises a bit of a red flag to me. I'm not saying your experience is invalid or whatever, but the I don't like Vista seems to have reached meme level social distribution and that makes me very suspicious of it's technical authenticity.

[Amelia G]

I have no respect for microsoft since vista...

Never used Vista myself. Largely because it received so many bad reviews in the general zeitgeist that I assumed it was bad. I've heard that people who blind-tested (i.e. did not know it was Vista they were using) liked it and even preferred it to certain other operating systems.

Have you ever used Vista?

[Amelia G]

I do find a lot more people who claim to be very down on Vista than I seem to find people who have actually used Vista, which kind of raises a bit of a red flag to me. I'm not saying your experience is invalid or whatever, but the I don't like Vista seems to have reached meme level social distribution and that makes me very suspicious of it's technical authenticity.

Synchronicity!

[episode allah]

I have a fairly new laptop that shipped with Vista. Now I’m no tech-head but even i find it incredibly frustrating just trying to do simple things like moving folders and fixing bugs. Plus it uses too much memory. Its not the end of the world or anything but when I had a Mac, the software was always reliable and stable. That was a good few years ago though. To be honest i also liked the titanium finish.

[jonny.illuminati]

i have been using vista for a year... i prefer MAC OSX but i have to use vista at work... super memory hog (i have 4 GB in my laptop) but it works well and i like it better than XP... people just like to "hate on" micro$oft

[a_small_death]

I have Vista Ultimate on this machine and twice it has erased my profile. Backing up your work is so essential when working with this os. I'm not adversed to using mac. I've had to use final cut and flash on the platform. I just hate how the Mac Cult markets itself as only the cool people use mac. Alot of mac people I noticed have this kind elitist attitude when it comes to their machine. The marketing I think shows.

[Panik]

I too have been forced to use both for a number of years. I started on PC and was given a MAC powerbook to use about three years ago. I'm left handed (with my mouse), so the MAC interface is more convenient for me from a strict format POV. Opening and closing windows on a MAC is on the upper left, whereas they are on the right on PC. Other than that the differences are miniscule, except that most financial programs require PC. Also many cool music-thieving software is set-up for PC, so I don't steal as much music as perhaps I could.

I will defend the notion that MACs are less open to viruses though, because my PC has been dogged with viruses more times than I can count, and as a result I've had to deal with the outsourced ESL minions in PC support 800 numbers to fix the problems instigated by PC viruses. Since time for me is money, that alone has made the additional front-end expense of MAC a bargain.
The best laptop DJ programs were all PC for a very long time, but the music editing programs were MAC. So it's a wash. I have a pre-intel powerbook, which does run faster than the ones that came later, which tried to integrate PC and MAC elements. Now that's probably moot.

Do I find those smarmy Justin Long commercials annoying? Yes, but I don't make many buying decisions based on commercials. A lifetime of working in marketing has made me less susceptible, which is why most of us in this line of work run focus groups to see what people are susceptible (to). Apparently from Apple's research, people are susceptible to sarcasm dished out in heavy portions. As stated in the original post, Apple isn't going after the everyday layman. They're going after urban professionals with expendable income. They want the Coach, Vuitton, Hugo Boss consumer, who will pay more because it costs more. That demographic is largely economic proof. The new IBM campaign speaks to the layperson, which is at this moment in time a less financially stable (though overwhelmingly more populated) audience. They're not trying to win over MAC users, they're trying to make PC owners feel good about the machines they already own. This is a tail-wags-the-dog proposal; spending money on a client that has already paid. I'm not saying that's a bad idea, but it's definitely Plan B.
Of course I'd pick Bill Gates over Steve Jobs any day of the week, so these new IBM ads amuse me, much like the "This is your brain on drugs," "Where's the beef?" and "Whasssuppp!" spots of days gone by. None of those made me want to 1) not do drugs, 2) eat a Wendy's Hamburger, or 3) drink a Miller beer product. This IBM campaign won't make me want to run out and buy a PC, either. Not the least of which reason being that it somewhat insults MAC consumers. It won't be seen as an industry changer like the MAC spots were, but it's cool. I like a company that isn't afraid to punch below the belt -especially while pretending to take the high ground.
Kudos, IBM.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

I have Vista. It's not that bad. I knew ahead of time how much memory it used, so I got a 'puter with 3 GB's of memory...I also bought a "dummies" book for it that really helped alot. Some of my functions I set back to "XP" because I'm more of a user-friendly guy....But, I would say at least half of my functions are set up the "Vista" way and everything has been fine for 6 months now. With the 3 Gigs of memory, my computer runs very smoothly.

[Mr Karl]

I've been using vista since march.......it took about a week to get used to, I think it's fine

I know people with macs and they like it, you can do stuff like make cool stationery emails and stuff like that pretty easily, but eventually they always dual boot with windows

[Morning Glory]

I hate that commercial, you thought this was the new windows operating system xylophone, but it's actually vista!

why would they need to dupe people into using vista? furthermore, why would people care what operating system they were using, just as long as they liked it?

they should have just had people using vista and saying how much they liked it. it's really fucking weird when they have to employ psychological testing to advertise a product.

I just don't like it because it's basically an apple program, it looks really cool! but it doesn't really do jack shit.

I don't give a shit about 3D pop up graphics that rotate when I'm using my word processor.

there hasn't been any programs designed by microsoft that have really improved what I need to do since windows 98.

[Buster Friendly]

Yeah, see here's the thing though, apparently Windows Vista Won't Run On Dell Dimension.

[Amelia G]

I hate that commercial, you thought this was the new windows operating system xylophone, but it's actually vista!

why would they need to dupe people into using vista? furthermore, why would people care what operating system they were using, just as long as they liked it?

they should have just had people using vista and saying how much they liked it. it's really fucking weird when they have to employ psychological testing to advertise a product.

I just don't like it because it's basically an apple program, it looks really cool! but it doesn't really do jack shit.

I don't give a shit about 3D pop up graphics that rotate when I'm using my word processor.

there hasn't been any programs designed by microsoft that have really improved what I need to do since windows 98.

I liked Windows 98 just fine, but my Photoshop works better in XP 64 before of its ability to make use of multiple processors. Only useful difference between the two for me. And a few things are incompatible with 64 which is annoying.

[Wickedanima]

I do find a lot more people who claim to be very down on Vista than I seem to find people who have actually used Vista, which kind of raises a bit of a red flag to me. I'm not saying your experience is invalid or whatever, but the I don't like Vista seems to have reached meme level social distribution and that makes me very suspicious of it's technical authenticity.

Most people are anti-Vista for the wrong reasons.

The fact is that running Vista takes up at least a Gig of your RAM. Now, that might not seem like a problem for people that have a new PC a year, and have more than enough RAM. But the point is that most people just have a Gig of RAM on their older computers, and you need more than a gig to run anything beside your OS. So if you wanted to put an additional messenger, play an MMORPG, or something else you're essentially boned.

A Gig of ram being used up by your OS is a fuckload. Really. Now if you are a typical person who just serfs the internet with no other bells and whistles? Vista is nice. Its got a cool look, awesome graphics, and just seems neet.

It needs some adjustments, or Microsoft needs to upgrade all its customers up to at least 3 gigs of RAM, and should NOT be offering Compy's with less than three Gigs and Vista. Period.

ALSO, I don't know if this was always the case, but the reason I liked to work on MAC as an artist was that they had 64 bit processors without much of an upgrade price. Now since they've switced to Intel, I've noticed that 32 bit is standard. All I know is that while I used macs, the processors were superior, and my pictures translated better to the net because of the 64 bit processing and clearer graphics. I use a PC now. Its not horrible, but its not like a billy baddass MAC of 8 years ago.

I also liked MAC because of the OS, which was more stable because it was the only thing running. Windows has instabilities and vulnerabilities because Bios and Windos are two OS's running on one computer, and that creates backdoors and some issues.

*shrug* As far as I'm concerned, I'd love to have MacOs on my PC. Mac and PC are basically the same thing electronically now. Of course in my ultimate fantasy, I'd take one of those G5 tower computers. <3

[helcyon]

I've posted enough elsewhere to show that I'm agnostic when it comes to these matters and there are horses for courses but...

I think the idea that "graphical design programs work better on macs than PCs" is illogical and untrue these days. Maybe this was true in the past and I'm no guru but Photoshop 5.5 and later seem at least as good on PC. Maybe it's just I like what I know best - not an uncommon attitude.

I have been using Vista since pre-release betas which means as long as anyone who doesn't work in Redmond and yes for all its flaws I like it. The web-server IIS 7 is a step up from XP/Server 2000 and IIS 6 but not everyone cares about this. I actually think there are a lot of useability improvements for the general home user as well. It won't work properly on older hardware though and this is a maybe understandable, although frustrating, fact. What you going to do? You can always go write your own Vista hardware drivers (yeah right) if the MS engineers or the hardware vendors didn't write them for you (not going to happen). So basically if you want your old Nikon slide scanner or Akai sampler to work with legacy software apps then you are going to have to walk around the streets until you find a roadkill PC - an old PII, PIII or PIV that someone has chucked - load '98 onto it and that's that. I do this but load the universally unpopular Windows ME onto it instead (characteristically gravitating towards unpopular behaviour of course) which works fine for that purpose. I am the only person I know of in the world who has this OS loaded up somewhere still . Anyone after a Nikon slide scanner by the way? You can't have my sampler though .

It's true that MS is more or less planning to just can Vista and put out a new OS sooner or later. Support for older OSs is phased out too quickly which is also lame.

All the sooking about MS Windows XP died once Vista was released and everyone realised that XP SPII is in fact a reasonably worked out & stable platform for a lot of things. If you want to set up your own "Industrial Light and Magic" studio to re-shoot "Pearl Harbour" (for which you should clearly be pro-actively euthanised) then by all means go get a warehouse full of SGI machines running UNIX. You could also solder a lot of Playstations or X-boxes together somehow. (Slightly off topic - you can write funky things for your 'puta using the Nintendo WII infra-red controller - like controlling the computer by waving your hands around or, with a projector, drawing on walls by guesturing like in "Minority Report")

[helcyon]

Yeah, see here's the thing though, apparently Windows Vista Won't Run On Dell Dimension.

[VoldtaEngler]

I bought my Sony Vaio laptop with Vista already on it.. It was different at first, getting used to everything...but it's pretty straight forward, a better search option, and as long as you do have the ram to run it (i.e. buy it already pre-loaded on a new machine that can handle it) it works fine.

Everytime I go back to my other desktop with XP on it, it just feels outdated and slower for me.. Just my opinion.

[Mindgames]

I won't trust a Microsoft OS until it's been out a good 5 years. Stability is everything on a workstation - funky transparent windows are fine if you're the kind of person who's actually said "O M G" out loud, but of the 10+ core packages we run in the studio only two are Vista-certified, and neither of those runs without squeaking. We've had a single Vista machine for a couple of years just to play with, but our box of free upgrade discs is still somewhere in the basement and shows no signs of being opened.

To me an OS should be like a good manservant. Silently efficient, small and cheap to feed. Vista is more like Kato.

[Raza]

I do find a lot more people who claim to be very down on Vista than I seem to find people who have actually used Vista, which kind of raises a bit of a red flag to me. I'm not saying your experience is invalid or whatever, but the I don't like Vista seems to have reached meme level social distribution and that makes me very suspicious of it's technical authenticity.

Microsoft has earned criticism on their Vista project that goes beyond the technical qualities and failings of the product itself, primarily by their 'dirty' marketing techniques. You don't need to have used the OS to object to that.

And on a smaller note, many of those technical failings are just that; technical and objective in nature - this makes it possible for someone with some understanding of any of the fields on which it functions to have a solid opinion merely from reading specs, test results and reviews. This may not make up for the larger part of the people participating in the 'vista sucks meme', but it does add up.

[Amelia G]

Microsoft has earned criticism on their Vista project that goes beyond the technical qualities and failings of the product itself, primarily by their 'dirty' marketing techniques. You don't need to have used the OS to object to that.

And on a smaller note, many of those technical failings are just that; technical and objective in nature - this makes it possible for someone with some understanding of any of the fields on which it functions to have a solid opinion merely from reading specs, test results and reviews. This may not make up for the larger part of the people participating in the 'vista sucks meme', but it does add up.

In a field where there do not appear to be any good guys, I am not about to claim that MicroSoft does not engage in any sketchy business practices, but Apple's marketing has struck me an infinitely dirtier and less respectful of the consumer's intelligence. What "dirty marketing techniques" are you referring to apropos MicroSoft?

[Raza]

Selling upgrades from XP that once used, won't let you go back to using the XP you paid for; the continuation of popular MS programs only for Vista; deals with major hardware outlets to sell complete systems exclusively with Vista on them; general 'minimal compatibility' tactics wherever they have a finger in the stew.

Anyway, I know very little of Apple, but I'd say there's plenty 'good guys' in the field with the various free-to-use open source (primarily *nix) OSes.

[Amelia G]

Selling upgrades from XP that once used, won't let you go back to using the XP you paid for; the continuation of popular MS programs only for Vista; deals with major hardware outlets to sell complete systems exclusively with Vista on them; general 'minimal compatibility' tactics wherever they have a finger in the stew.

Anyway, I know very little of Apple, but I'd say there's plenty 'good guys' in the field with the various free-to-use open source (primarily *nix) OSes.

I do not disagree with you, but I would characterize that as evil distribution tactics and not evil marketing tactics. I think Apple still wins the Slimy Marketing Olympics hands down.

[Raza]

Right, I know jack shit of the terminology of selling stuff and use those interchangeably, so you're probably right.

[episode allah]

Also, there seem to be computers shipping out from companies like Toshiba and Sony which have graphics cards that are exclusively designed to run with Vista. This is a pain in the ass and makes switching back to XP frustrating and occasionally impossible.

[Amelia G]

Also, there seem to be computers shipping out from companies like Toshiba and Sony which have graphics cards that are exclusively designed to run with Vista. This is a pain in the ass and makes switching back to XP frustrating and occasionally impossible.

Can you show me an example of a graphics card which only works with Vista please?

[a_small_death]

Can you show me an example of a graphics card which only works with Vista please?

I would not say an exclusive example but perhaps more that Mac and Microsatan are guilty of the same thing. Nvidia is designing their new hardware to run exclusively on vista and OSX Leopard. Microsoft has written DX 10 to completly use the gpu of the card to render out all of the os's video needs.

As for service pack 1, well unless you have a laptop you won't see any noticeable improvement. The os will still need a heap of tweeks. Back up is a must, can't say that enough.

On a side note here is it just me or does mac early on get the award for most expensive updates. For I believe the 1st two updates in the design dept at the college I was going to we had to pay for all the osx updates and man was it painful. I can at least say that with microsoft with a suspenseful wait you just downloaded the update an be on your merry way till the next update.

[episode allah]

Can you show me an example of a graphics card which only works with Vista please?

The ATI Radeon X1200 is not XP friendly. It ships exclusively with Vista.

[Mr Karl]

I think Apple still wins the Slimy Marketing Olympics hands down.

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

In a field where there do not appear to be any good guys, I am not about to claim that MicroSoft does not engage in any sketchy business practices, but Apple's marketing has struck me an infinitely dirtier and less respectful of the consumer's intelligence. What "dirty marketing techniques" are you referring to apropos MicroSoft?

Less respectful than the Mojave Experiment? Saying I am not cool because i own a PC seems a little less insulting than saying I haven't upgraded to Vista because I am too stupid to try it, but i have always been a little sensitive.

[helcyon]

uh-oh... this from smh.com.au. embarrassing...

'I'm a PC' made on a Mac

and Eva Longoria actually likes Macs it seems. (Who gives a fuck what Deepak Chopra likes)

[incog]

uh-oh... this from smh.com.au. embarrassing...

'I'm a PC' made on a Mac

and Eva Longoria actually likes Macs it seems. (Who gives a fuck what Deepak Chopra likes)

If Pharrell Williams carries a gold-plated iPhone and composes music on a PC which do you think is more important?

According to that article Deepak Chopra is not a "fan" of Macs. He just said iPods are harmless.

[Buster Friendly]

According to that article Deepak Chopra is not a "fan" of Macs. He just said iPods are harmless.

who gives a fuck what deepfry samosa thinks.

[Amelia G]

who gives a fuck what deepfry samosa thinks.

I've never heard of anyone disliking Deepak Chopra before and I'm a little disappointed by the racial slurs I've been seeing all over the web. Why would anyone dislike Deepak Chopra?

[Buster Friendly]

it's not a racial slur.

it's a pun on his name, and a reference to his waistline, and the floppy wattles of flab that hang from his neck.

it's not like I called him a paki fuck.

chopra is a slimy newage huckster, peddling bullshit pop psychology, and raking in millions for doing fuck all for people who have real problems.

although it is true that I despise the whole bogus fastbuck charlatan yogacomelately culture that chopra simultaneously apes, and tries to subtly distance himself from, it has nothing to do with his race.

trained as the successor to the maharishi of transcendental meditation fame chopra decided that he could make a faster buck by ditching his old teacher's organization, and down playing the swami angle, while pushing the same song and dance on suburban housewives.

yeah I fuckin' hate him.

and I've been calling him deepfry samosa for years.

[episode allah]

it's not a racial slur.

it's a pun on his name, and a reference to his waistline, and the floppy wattles of flab that hang from his neck.

it's not like I called him a paki fuck.

chopra is a slimy newage huckster, peddling bullshit pop psychology, and raking in millions for doing fuck all for people who have real problems.

although it is true that I despise the whole bogus fastbuck charlatan yogacomelately culture that chopra simultaneously apes, and tries to subtly distance himself from, it has nothing to do with his race.

trained as the successor to the maharishi of transcendental meditation fame chopra decided that he could make a faster buck by ditching his old teacher's organization, and down playing the swami angle, while pushing the same song and dance on suburban housewives.

yeah I fuckin' hate him.

and I've been calling him deepfry samosa for years.

[Amelia G]

it's not a racial slur.

it's a pun on his name, and a reference to his waistline, and the floppy wattles of flab that hang from his neck.

it's not like I called him a paki fuck.

chopra is a slimy newage huckster, peddling bullshit pop psychology, and raking in millions for doing fuck all for people who have real problems.

although it is true that I despise the whole bogus fastbuck charlatan yogacomelately culture that chopra simultaneously apes, and tries to subtly distance himself from, it has nothing to do with his race.

trained as the successor to the maharishi of transcendental meditation fame chopra decided that he could make a faster buck by ditching his old teacher's organization, and down playing the swami angle, while pushing the same song and dance on suburban housewives.

yeah I fuckin' hate him.

and I've been calling him deepfry samosa for years.

I don't mean to be all, err, PC about it, but, while I can respect someone not liking the man's philosophy, calling him deepfry samosa still strikes me as kinda not cool.

Saying you are referring more to his weight than ethnicity doesn't really make it okay.

Apart from everything else, I think he seems pretty fit, taking into account that he is 62-years-old.

[Raza]

Meh, what are childish insults for, if not throwing at people we hold a well-reasoned dislike of?

'Cool' is an aesthetical judgement each of us has to make for ourselves, and is welcome to withhold on any grounds deemed appropriate, but being uncool is hardly 'not okay'.

[Buster Friendly]

I don't mean to be all, err, PC about it, but, while I can respect someone not liking the man's philosophy, calling him deepfry samosa still strikes me as kinda not cool.

Saying you are referring more to his weight than ethnicity doesn't really make it okay.

Apart from everything else, I think he seems pretty fit, taking into account that he is 62-years-old.

the "weight" thing is just more invective, silly and pointless.

it's a pun on his name.

[helcyon]

Why would anyone dislike Deepak Chopra?

Well I don't dislike him. If anything I'm predjudiced or scarred .

Confession: I was briefly dating a really nice woman who is heavily involved doing promotions for Anthony Robbins, Deepak as well as others plus is, I think, a director in a "wealth empowerment" type outfit that was going to float on the stock exchange (may've done so - lost track). It was weird - we were from unimaginably different worlds. She buying sports cars, me not in scope. She hosting testimonial videos for Anthony R (was cool to show off to my mates by pointing her out on the web), me not ever likely to go anywhere near "The Power Within" or woteva.

Anyway believe it or not I'm a bit of a provocateur. For instance one day she said "I'm thinking of buying commercial investment property" and I couldn't resist replying "What is commercial investment property?". = stunned look. Yeah I'm rough trade. So another time I said to her, for no reason, "Deepak Chopra is a prick.". = stunned look. Ignorant humour has a reverse charm or so I thought. I'm rarely serious and people who know me get to know that. Even a current schmooz who is rather hard-core left wing is getting the idea and doesn't get her militant hackles up too much at my enormously provocative mouth any more.

(Who gives a fuck what Deepak Chopra likes)

well I don't actually but I didn't mean to imply dislike for Deep C - who I know nothing about - I don't really know what I meant (clearly) but it probably stems from a jealousy, a scarring past event or more likely poor nutrition and bad upbringing. And I'm a PC