Hello again, I’m Vista

The Economist ^ | August 7, 2008

[Schnucki]

WERE advertisements rather than sales the yardstick, Apple would have dominated the computer industry for decades. First there was the legendary spot “1984”, in that same year, which is often considered the best ad in history. Directed by Ridley Scott, then basking in “Blade Runner” fame, and produced by Chiat/Day, Apple’s advertising agency to this day, it depicted Apple as the individualist and cool brand, in contrast to oppressive conformity, then understood to mean IBM.

Ever since then, the same man, Lee Clow, at what is now TBWA\Chiat\Day, part of Omnicom, a giant marketing group, has been socking it to Apple’s bigger rival, Microsoft. His deadliest work yet is the current “Get a Mac” campaign—better known by its opening lines: “Hello, I’m a Mac—and I’m a PC.” In the American version of the ad, a suave Mac, played by Justin Long, an actor, contrasts with a lovable but decidedly uncool PC, played by John Hodgman, a comedian who has been catapulted to celebrity as a result. The upshot, as ever: Apple’s Mac types are elegantly effective; Microsoft’s PC folks are bumbling plodders.

All this puts Microsoft in the awkward position of having its brand image defined by a rival—despite its own vast advertising budget, which towers above Apple’s. But Microsoft has also made Apple’s task a lot easier. It has made software that, by comparison with Apple’s, is buggy and clunky. Most notoriously, Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista, was first delayed for years, then launched to dreadful reviews and is now selling more slowly than expected, even after big price cuts.

So Microsoft is fighting back. A preliminary salvo, fired last month, was the so-called “Mojave Experiment”—a focus group in San Francisco of 140 volunteers who had not actually tried Vista but professed that they had heard awful things about it. They were then treated to ten-minute demos by a trained expert of a “new” operating system, allegedly called Mojave. They liked what they saw, and when told that this product was in fact Vista, they gasped in shock and delight. The climactic moments, naturally, are available for viewing at www.mojaveexperiment.com.

You could be forgiven for wondering whether Apple had commissioned the advertisement. It was Microsoft at its worst. The “experiment” addressed none of the problems with Vista—the trouble starts when ordinary consumers, not experts, try to use it with their existing hardware—and it felt as authentic as “reality” television.

But Microsoft is also preparing a much bigger attack. Earlier this year the firm caused a stir when it passed over its previous advertising agencies and chose Crispin Porter + Bogusky, arguably the hottest agency today, to put together a campaign rumoured to be costing $300m. Crispin’s brief is to come up with an answer to Apple’s campaign that does not feel reactive, and somehow makes Microsoft look cool.

By reputation, Crispin, based in Miami and Boulder, Colorado, might be the one agency that could pull off such a miracle. Its creative star is Alex Bogusky, though he has now risen to management level. In recent years, Crispin has revived, among other brands, Burger King, while coming up with admired campaigns for the Mini and Volkswagen. That said, there have also been flops, such as the baffling “Algorithm” campaign for Ask.com, which seemed to promote its larger rival Google.

Making Microsoft sexy is certain to be Crispin’s biggest challenge yet, as its creative types are surely aware—since they, in line with the rest of their industry, overwhelmingly own and use Macs. But it may be possible. Apple’s campaign has left itself vulnerable in at least one unforeseen way. Although everyone watching its spots agrees that Macs are cooler, most people also adore Mr Hodgman’s PC. By contrast, Mr Long’s Mac comes across as mildly but increasingly smug and irritating.

[Eagles2003]

I just bought a new HP laptop with Vista. I thought about a Dell before the June 18 drop dead for XP, but Dell is nothing but trouble.

The HP hardware is great, the Vista SW s*cks. Couple that with the touch pad and it’s a disaster.

Here’s the worst part: Apparently HP and others have signed an agreement with Microsh*t not to provide drivers for the HW required to install XP on the new machines.

There’s stuff out there on the net you can reference, some people have done it, but most I’ve found are from ‘07.

That means you need to find every driver AND a SATA HD driver, which I guess notebooks require. I don’t know myself , I thought the HD interfaces were built into desktops, maybe not laptops.

In other words, what should be a matter of wiping the HD and installing a new OS is a nightmare and I’m still working on it. Maybe I’ll have it done by Xmas. If not I’ll be the first one in line to test the crippled crap MS sends out as alpha candidates.

Or I’ll be the first one to buy into the MS replacement the Chinese put out. I’ve got Linux, never tried it.

[DB]

Apple made a major mistake back in the 80’s. They couldn't think beyond being a proprietary hardware company. If they would have ported the Mac operating system to the open architecture PC back then they would be what Microsoft is today and Microsoft would have been a footnote in history.

As far as Vista goes, Vista mostly works just fine unless you want to use older programs that there are no current replacements for - then you're screwed... It also performs poorly for gaming.

[ruination]

I’ve had Vista (on a new machine) for a few months now and haven’t had any problems with it. I like it a lot so far.

[BuckyKat]

I’ve used Vista for several months now. I’ve had a few compatibility issues, but overall, the nice features outweigh the bugs. I did try to install a dual-boot however, and that still hasn’t happened. I can’t force HP to boot from my XP CD. I even wiped the hard drive completely and reformatted (after being sure I had installation disks for this individual machine) and tried installing XP first and fresh. No luck. My other computers have all recognized the XP startup disks I have, but the HP is certainly proprietary against it.

[HAL9000]

If they would have ported the Mac operating system to the open architecture PC back then they would be what Microsoft is today...

I'm glad that Apple didn't become what Microsoft is today.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Microsoft will cut its own throat with the strong arm tactics.

The Mojave experiment is BS. A ten-minute demo run by an expert in no way illustrates all the problems that have been reported. I do not doubt the Demo is pretty. It is like the intro to Windows 9.. on the CD. The OS never looks that good again.

[DB]

Well I meant the success... Not a entrenched megalith that can't innovate anymore...

[DB]

I’ve used Vista Ultimate on a work station for more than year now. Other than serious (and I do mean serious) compatibility problems there have been few other issues.

[Anti-Bubba182]

"...Other than serious (and I do mean serious) compatibility problems there have been few other issues."

....Other than than Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

[The Duke]

We’ve got a little R&D project going at our company to configure a Linux machine to compete, user interface-wise, with Vista and the Mac. I’ve got to say that Linux is really shaping up in that regard.

[DB]

People who browse the Web, send Email and other common things online would have zero issues with compatibility while having significantly better security from attack.

Corporate users who have to use customized and/or specialized tools are a wholly different matter.

[Caipirabob]

I’ve had Vista (on a new machine) for a few months now and haven’t had any problems with it. I like it a lot so far.

It really depends on what you're doing. I tend to hook up a variety of equipment to my PCs requiring several drivers and similar installs over a couple of months at a time. I can't risk the machine not cooperating with me. Here's the thing, I don't buy new. I can get older hardware/software to serve my needs just fine and get them dirt cheap. So a machine that expects "new drivers" for stuff that's likely not supported any more isn't going to be tolerated. XP works fine, Vista's a bane. It's not welcome in my home. I think I'm representative of the majority of the market.

That being said, I'm glad you're not having any trouble.

Vista is a cranky Maureen Down sitting in a stale old bar at 2:00AM during the last call wondering why the last remaining men won't make eye contact with her...

[Caipirabob]

The Mojave experiment is BS. A ten-minute demo run by an expert in no way illustrates all the problems that have been reported. I do not doubt the Demo is pretty. It is like the intro to Windows 9.. on the CD. The OS never looks that good again.

Let's see the "Mojave Experiment" run where someone takes all their hardware off an old PC running "Windows : Millenium Edition", installs it on the Vista machine and installs all the drivers.

Then we'll see the reaction...

I like XP, I can get it to work fine with all my old garbage...

[Eagles2003]

Do you have a desktop or notebook?

I built my own desktop with SATA capability and installed XP Pro with no problem, but with IDE drives.

I’ve considered Linux, that was why the desktop I built has a removable HD. I figured I could swap OS by swapping drives.

All I want is an OS that stays the he77 out of the way. Vista doesn’t, and the Registry crap Gates came up with is 90+% of the problems I have with Windows.

At least they finally got the multi-tasking to work better. There’s an old press conference for XP where Gates says he hopes the mean time between crashes is down from 8hrs with 98 to 24 with XP.

I had some unkind words with what turned out to be two admin moderators here because they failed to format their posts and opening additional windows caused my 98 system to crash and burn. PITA because they were too lazy to format.

[HEY4QDEMS]

Other than serious (and I do mean serious) compatibility problems there have been few other issues.

That's kinda like saying 'aside from the heat, hell isn't so bad'.

[Isabel C.]

Making Microsoft sexy is certain to be Crispin’s biggest challenge yet....

You can't make an inanimate object sexy.

[Barnyard]

Great Comment! This reminds me of how people used to rave about brands of cars that a very poor repair record.

[Woodman]

Tell me, what exactly sucks about VISTA on your laptop? Not the touch pad, which is hardware from Compaq.

Also, you can most likely install XP without any OEM drivers and get the Laptop up and running without too much hassle. I have done this in the past thinking it would be a disaster, but it never was.

[momincombatboots]

I have had vista for 8 months. Windows downloaded a service pack which shut me out of the net! Those of you that can- avoid Vista! Definitely turn off auto updates and tell your family. Another family member installed the SP and voila, no net. Doesn’t work with any peripherals short of a two to three hour project searching for and installing drivers.
My next computer will be a MAC!