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Posted on 08/13/2008 12:35:25 AM PDT by 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.
I’m stuck with MS because that’s what we use at work (too much hassle porting files back & forth). A family member bought a new PC that had Vista - it took me over three hours to get it up and running (it kept asking me all these durn fool “Do you want to....” questions.) It’s so bloated, I’m surprised it isn’t called the Hindenburg.
I know what you're saying, but "drivers" are just software.
The root of the problem with "drivers" is that Vista isn't fully backwards compatible with older software. Vista won't run older drivers. Compounding the problem, MicroSoft has no automatic way to make hardware work when the older driver won't run under Vista...the process isn't seemless to the user.
Contrast Vista with XP; consider that XP will see a new printer that just got added to a remote, networked PC. XP will automatically install/use the correct driver on your own computer...all in the background.
You might *never* physically see the new remote printer, but XP will give it to you as an option to select.
That new printer isn't on your own PC, it's installed at some remote location on a different computer. Doesn't matter. XP sees the new addition over the network and gives it to you.
And it does this in the background. You never had to make a mouseclick or press a key. XP just works. You see the new networked printer. Automatically.
Vista won't even see the old networked PC (e.g. if it is running NT 4), much less have a clue about the new printer added to it...and Vista certainly won't set up that new printer for every other networked Vista box automatically!
Honestly, Vista acts as though it was written and released prior to XP. Vista acts like very old software. Vista should be compared to NT 4, not XP.
I just bought a Gateway computer with Vista installed. If I am idle for 30 minutes or so it disconnects from the internet. Is this normal? Can I make it stop? Anyone?
Did someone mention Crispin?
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint crispin s day.
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"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
35 posted on August 13, 2008 7:10:08 AM MDT by montag813
Boot camp or under Parallels or VMware. If you used a Mac for 20 years, you never used OS X. OS X is built on top of BSD Unix,; it is bullet proof. OS X has a much more user friendly GUI than OS 9 Windows 2000, XP and Vista are newer brands Windows, any windows will run on a Mac :
of lipstick on the old and unsafe NT
ACK! GMTA
I don’t consider Consumers Reports to be credible, I’m an EE. When I was in college they did a report on small portable TVs and came up with 3 different ratings for 3 essentially identical TVs and didn’t even know they were identical. Statistical sample of one.
Similar response 20 years later from a friend who worked for RCA Sarnoff Labs and Samsung.
F them when it comes to cars too, they love their Japanese stuff.
Wow, they must have really pi**ed you off!
Remember, it's your kids who will be picking your nursing home...
Everything about the way the folders are designed, everything about the way the new search is designed and they way it can't find §¶¦±, the Start Menu, The task manager, and the general slowness just to name a few
One thing you Microsoft vendors can never answer,
I'm told Vista needs so much more memory than XP to run right (which I have and it still runs slow but beyond that),
Please tell me, what exactly is Vista doing with all that extra memory that XP doesn't use, that as a user I benefit from?
In other words, how does all these extra needed resources Vista needs & uses make my computing using experience more productive and/or more enjoyable compared with XP's fewer resources?
That's easy---it's constantly checking your software and any files you might run to be ABSOLUTELY SURE that they are all properly copyrighted. Of course, this is for the benefit of their corporate "partners" (in crime), and not you. Doing that takes a lot of CPU cycles, y'know.
Now I know. Only cost $550 plus tax. $100 off, and $185 in rebates made it affordable.
I found the tech support forums after I bought it, these are issues I wouldn’t even consider. I never expected lack of drivers to be an issue, especially SATA support. Luckily I started with HP tech support and got a straight answer, not the one I wanted, but straight.
My last laptop was an old Compaq and I think it ran 95. My sister just got a new Dell this spring and the battery only lasted 10-15 minutes.
I’ve got a Dell Dimension 3000 old desktop and went thru he77 adding a second HD. Dell says you can’t but it’s probably because the airflow is lousy and the case design is squirelly.
I had to make my own bracket, Dell doesn’t sell them anymore. And tap the hole in the case where the bracket attaches. Had some sector failures after about 3 years, only HD I’ve ever had fail. Then I had to remove the HD and install it in the one I built to properly diagnose it. I was having boot problems with the HD in the Dell supplied XP OS.
One thing I did like the Dell failed to boot once and I couldn’t even get the screen to come up. Problem was low voltage from my UPS and the Dell self help troubleshooting guide on the website solved the problem quickly. Didn’t even consider the UPS.
I’ve heard 3rd hand that AOL was paying Dell $40/computer to include their crap on Dell’s. Haven’t talked to the fellow myself in years but he just quit working at AOL after years of he77.
That might be why it took almost a year for prices to come down to the deal I got on that one.
That is undeniably the funniest thing I have read in a defense of Microsoft. Ever.
What’s even funnier is that Microsoft compared a “finished” OS to a beta release! MS is too much.
I don't know if this was happening with your previous computer, or if there was a previous computer. This could be an issue with your ISP instead of your computer. Depending on how you are connected, some routers may be configured by default to disconnect if idle for a certain number of minutes. I know this is true with DSL. Usually, there is an option on the router config to maintain the connection, even when idle.
I have indeed used OSX. I like the MAc, but there are many many apps which are not available, and bootcamp is not a complete solution. My XP is also bullet proof, btw. 8 PCs running XP, and not a single BSD or crash in 7 years.
I never had this problem with the old computer. My ISP is time Warner Cable’s Roadrunner. I assumed this was a problem/feature with Vista. I was using XP before.
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