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"Microsoft ought to spend $300 million on coding"

They did. And that's why their Minesweeper and Solitaire games are so freakin' snappy!

Not surprising, however being a fan of Jerry Sienfeld I was getting a kick out of them.

So these are Microsoft "Switcher" commercials?

That's what they sound like.

"My name's Bill Gates, and I didn't Switch."

"Macintosh. Life without wails."

The death throes of M$ are in the air. Have been for some while.

Grappling desperately to change an image that has taken hold of the public by storm; Windows is poor programing.

M$ needs to take the plunge that Apple did with the switch to a new code for its OS.

The giant needs a complete rewrite. It's much flaunted corporate stranglehold is now the one that is stopping M$ from true innovation. It is caught in its own trap and greed.

Seinfeld is the smart one and the winner in this...for what?...just two commercials shot...just how much money did Jerry make?
For him, I would smile with an additional pocket of dough, enough to supply his house with an Al Gore sized Mac network, and move on to his next image re-invigorating project.

@Modbus

Lol!

If I were to remove the walls in my life that form my house it would fall down.

Sep 18, 08 - 09:20 am Comment from: Grigori

"Mr. Gates makes a cameo appearance in the new Microsoft spots, along with celebrities like the actress Eva Longoria, the author Deepak Chopra. . . "

Chopra?? That quack? They're using HIM to help bolster their image? Cripes.

I can't believe that they are going to go with "I am a PC". This is another example of how they don't get it. One of the pillars of the mac/pc commercials is the contrast - not the absolute. Just saying that PC is better than you thought, still doesn't change the fact that Mac is better than PC. In fact, it sort of reinforces Hodgeman's premise of saying "I AM COOL! I AM COOL! I AM! I AM! I AM! WAAAH!"
M$, you need to learn that cool does not depend on the suit - it depends on the soul!

Oh!
I need a Microsoft PC...
Anyone know where to get one???
Does Microsoft make computers???
Oh NO... What's up with that???
This is truly the issue with the Microsoft ecosystem...
or lack there-of.

Get a Mac...
Have a life...

Architecture: no walls = no windows! This is very clear to everyone exept MS's managers... MS is doomed! This also might get clear for most of mankind...

Sep 18, 08 - 09:25 am Comment from: CYxodus

Redmond start your copiers. Wait, you just did...again.

M$ is just wandering around dazed and confused. This is shameful and won't fly with the public. It'll be seen as a cheap copy.

What walls are they worried about? The only time I hit a wall is when I work with Windows.

The level of panic at Microsoft and the Windows PC world is awesome and growing. Bad Vista OS (like tight shoes in the shower) is being trasher for XP or programed over. HP is developing their own OS. Dell is shutting factories down. etc. And Apple is growing 60.6% from 6.6% to 10.6% in laptop market share Q207 to Q208. New Apple Stores. New countries. New innovative products and services. etc.

This Q308 will blow them all away!!!

almux beat me to the punch. It seems like the WORST possible concept to use

Sep 18, 08 - 09:31 am Comment from: hagar57

"actress Eva Longoria, the author Deepak Chopra and the singer Pharrell Williams"
Let's see: a C-list actress, an esoteric healer, and Britney Spear's producer. These people couldn't talk me into visiting the john, even if I had cholera.

Sep 18, 08 - 09:33 am Comment from: WindozeKiller

"One of the new commercials will even show a real Microsoft engineer who is a ringer for John Hodgman, ... introducing himself: 'Hello, I'm a PC, and I've been made into a stereotype,'"

Wow. That is SOOOooooo easy to counter with a Mac/PC ad: The Real Deal John Hodgman stands next to a "poor copy" of himself spouting buzzwords and babbling incoherently. "Who's that?" asks Mac. "That's just that guy who's going around pretending to be me - kind of how I want to be like YOU, Mac"

M$ = Crash infusion

Every time one of the Apple 'Get A Mac' ads is mentioned, it is described as the schlump of a PC guy getting mocked by a hipster, as if the Mac were abusing the poor PC. The Mac hardly says anything at all, let alone anything insulting or derogatory to the PC. The PC guys are certainly reading a lot into the ads.

@LOL
You are exactly right. Microsoft needs to stop supporting all the truly ancient hardware and rewrite Windows from the ground up if they are to have any hope of surviving. That is what Apple did. They saw that OS 9 couldn't go any further and had to be abandoned. Microsoft's business model of putting their OS on any POS hardware is now biting them in the ass.

Wait a minute ...

If Each of these new ads will focus on a "real person" and their experience with Windows, and start off with the phrase "Hello, my name is <blank> and I'm a PC" ....

Doesn't Apple just have to pull it's original ads to kind of make the whole campaign look stupid and unintelligible? The PC in the Apple ads is a computer, not a person. If MS has a bunch of people saying "I'm a PC," they will just look like idiots, especially if Apple removes the original frame of reference.

It seems the height of stupidity to start an ad campaign based on how your rival is characterising your product. It gives all the control to Apple because all MS is doing is attempting to redefine Apple's terms.

They need to redefine themselves, not try to redefine what someone else has defined them as. Tres Stupid.

Sep 18, 08 - 09:54 am Comment from: Cascadians

Once again, it's copy and steal. So Redmond noticed that Steve Jobs sometimes answers his email? O O O O O goodie let's have Billy Goat advertise his email so he's like Steve Jobs! Copy copy copy subvert twist crappily imitate and on and on and on.

Billy & Jerry's gay adventures were a more interesting morbid train wreck.

They are just making things worse. The largest tech company can not even get it's own ideas together to promote it's products.

Steve Ballmer is Apples best employe, as a mac user I'm happy about that but in all honesty he has got to go.

Hopefully after apple has 25% share back (US)!

Is it really the 1st of april ?? How is it even possible ?

If Apple would be nasty there are just sooo many ways to flip this in their "Get a mac" ads...

Sep 18, 08 - 10:25 am Comment from: dd

Good job, MS. Looks like you're taking another play from your "R&D;South" playbook, only this time, it's not a small-time company anymore.

♪♫ Everyone associated with Microsoft is a moron. ♫♪

Sep 18, 08 - 10:29 am Comment from: 84 Mac Guy

@WindozeKiller

You took the words out of my mouth. What a perfect idea for another I'm a PC/I'm a Mac ad.

BTW, yet another MS failure. These guys can't even do successful ads. I'm telling you, Apple should give MS another $300M to make more ads. Its like giving a kid dynamite and matches.

Finally, since MS is using the ad firm that created those Burger King commercials with the creepy King, I half expect to see a new MS ad with a character sporting a big, plastic Ballmer-head appearing in a home where someone is using a PC.

ok you've seen ads that compares an AMC gremlin vs a Ferrari and point out the consistant failures the AMC and you say lets spend money to point out the same failures by selecting a look-a-like product. They just dont get it.

Wow, Microsoft just looks more and more desperate and pathetic by the day. They really are an even bigger joke now than they've ever been.

Wait until you see the next batch.

PCworld has a tease, which includes some "real guy" supposedly from Microsoft who's holding up an "I'm a PC" sign while in a shark cage.

Unfortunately, that shark cage image is an obvious Photoshop hack, not reality.

Look at how the great white shark in the background is at a 45 degree angle to the visible surface. First off, they aren't able to leap clear of the water like that (the image depicts that the back third of the shark's body still supposedly being entirely out of the water), and even if they could, there would be "splash" and turbulence in a photo catching this motion, which is not present here.

It seems that more and more, "PC" really means "Poseur Computer".

-hh

PS: "No cage diving":

<http://www.huntzinger.com/photo/old/hammer.jpg>

Sep 18, 08 - 10:48 am Comment from: Scarbro

Pharrell Williams! I've lost respect for him... I guarantee that any musician or DJ or Producer worth his salt is not making music on a PC. And Eva Longoria... I always thought she was overrated but now I've lost all respect for her too... the rest of the Desperate Housewives should kick her to the curb of Wisteria Lane an pummel her with brown brick Zunes... Deepak Chopra kind of makes sense... he takes original ideas (Hinduism, Buddhism etc.) and re-packages them as his own... kinda like Microsoft does with Apple.

Don't worry Seinfeld, they'll be a line up of celebrity fools in your boat soon enough!

So the new ads will feature Gates and a Hodgman lookalike and celebrities and everyday users just like you (who just happen to work at Microsoft). Sounds a little unfocused, which is not good for an ad campaign.

But the real puzzle is this:
"[…]all of whom affirm, in fast-paced, upbeat vignettes, their pride in using the computers that run on Microsoft operating systems and software."

"Pride"? Pride in using an OS? I've never felt proud using Mac OS X. An occasional spark of smugness, perhaps, but pride is not an emotion I associate with OS use. What a bizarre concept.

"actress Eva Longoria, the author Deepak Chopra and the singer Pharrell Williams"

MS should use Eva Mendes instead who has allegedly claimed that she's had sex in all 50 U.S. states. Just like Microsoft's customers here who get screwed all over the country.

Sep 18, 08 - 11:05 am Comment from: MacRaven

Microsoft made ITSELF into a stereotype via it's long history of poor performing, ugly products that are always a half-ass copy of Apple's futuristic, innovative style.

Sep 18, 08 - 11:07 am Comment from: MacRaven

Slogan should be "Microsoft: Life without Balls."

Seinfeld played himself out by even being in the ads in the first place. If you don't have 10 milliion is one thing, but if you do, why make yourself look bad this late in the game?
Seinfeld gets fired after he's retired, WTF?
I had to cringe at that shoe store one, sad times for you Jerry.

Sep 18, 08 - 11:31 am Comment from: iWill

Phase II pitch:

An emperor (Bill Gates) who cares too much about appearances, hires two swindlers who promise him the finest OS from the most beautiful code. This code, they tell him, is invisible to anyone who was either too stupid or unfit for his position. The Emperor cannot see the (non-existent) code, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing stupid; his ministers do the same.

When the swindlers report that the OS is finished, they call it "Vista". The Emperor then goes on a procession through the land showing off his new "OS". During the course of the procession, a small child cries out, "But he has nothing there!" The crowd realizes the child is telling the truth. The Emperor, however, holds his head high and continues the procession.

"Brilliant!"

So MSFT will demonstrate that it is so out of fresh ideas it even has to copy the ad ideas from Apple. And it will show just how badly they are even at imitation - Apple makes PC a lovable guy despite his flaws; MSFT will undoubtly show a PC guy who sneers at anything others want to do outside of Windows. And no offense, but unless somebody shows me Eva Longoria or Deepak Chopra coding ASP.NET, I doubt they know they care or can tell the difference what OS they have as long as they can surf the Web and use some writing software.

Just switch already, Bill!

"unless somebody shows me Eva Longoria or Deepak Chopra coding ASP.NET, I doubt they know they care or can tell the difference what OS they have"

But Pharrell Williams you give a pass?

Why does Microsoft insist on looking down its nose at people? Seriously, first they've got that absurd Mojave Experiment where they tell us that the real problem with Vista is that the stupid users just don't realize how "awesome" it is. Now, we're supposed to embrace MS junk because they've got Eva Longoria pitching it. Are you kidding me? Memo to MS (and a lot of other Fortune 500 companies) - contrary to what you may think, many of us out here actually have fully formed egos and do not need or want celebrities "guiding" us in how we spend OUR money, especially not celebs whose sole claim to fame is being part of the drivel that you call "content" on the increasingly irrelevant medium of network programming.

(sorry for the rant, but MS, $300 million spent on bad advertising, and Hollywood celebrities are a really annoying combination.)

Sep 18, 08 - 12:52 pm Comment from: Swordmaker

Apple should counter by hiring the actors who played the family in the last MS ad. Build a duplicate set. Show them really enjoying the brief visits of Justin Long as Mac... and how helpful Mac is in getting the help with issues they were refused by Gates and Seinfeld in their invasion stay. Justin can just stop by and help grandma trim the hedges, fix the car, advise Dad on his Greek coins, and Mom on her investments. The Pizza guy cans say "Wow! Cool! A Mac!" as Justin hands him real, spendable cash for the pizza...

My wife got a new laptop 18 months ago, and had no choice but to get Vista on it. Last month, after 7 straight days of having to take the battery out to get it to shutdown/reboot, she got fed up and got a MacBook Air. I guess she won't be getting any casting calls from Microsoft.

Another failure by MS. Geeee

Sep 18, 08 - 01:03 pm Comment from: BC Kelly

Microsoft = Corporate America = Wall Street



Economic Situation Big Picture becoming clear to you now ?






BC

Eva Longoria????? Desperate time calls for desperate measure and desperate measure calls for desperate housewives! Brah ha ha ha!

Sep 18, 08 - 01:43 pm Comment from: DLMeyer

MDN said: "Is it really a winning sales tactic to celebrate the fact that hundreds of thousands of Internet traffic-clogging Windows PC spambots are connected via TCP/IP to creative, passionate Mac users?"
I'm sorry. Did I miss the meeting where we were all told to send out our bots to multiply and bear fruit? To clog the 'net with traffic designed to disable Windows systems? 'Cuz, I think that's illegal, besides being "just wrong"! The comment is broken, right? Some part of it is missing? "Say it ain't SO!"

Sep 18, 08 - 02:35 pm Comment from: Cascadians

Macro$#!+ is once again baldly copying former Apple ads and current Apple ads, going as far as to sub a clone of "I'm a PC."

Billy Goat the Thief is obsessed with piss-poor imitations of everything Apple and stealing as blatantly as possible. Fire up your photocopiers, Redmond, indeed.

It's like some sort of sibling rivalry where the little brother is consumed with envy and determined to steal and hog and cram everything he can in a fit.

No amount of ads will change the fact that when the TV viewer gets up from the couch and faces his PC running Macro$#!+ he's getting slimed with sheer crap.

If only he could awaken from his Stockholm hostage nightmare and experience the joyous liberation of using a Mac!

Sep 18, 08 - 03:33 pm Comment from: Erk

this amuses me greatly

keep on spending microsoft!

Sep 18, 08 - 04:12 pm Comment from: MacSmiley

"Real people" telling the world in advertisements that they love their PCs? Sounds like MSFT is still copying Apple... This time it's Apple's original Switch campaign!!

Jokes aren't funny if they have to be explained, so let's abandon hope you'll get the joke and try for simple comprehension.

From the article: "Microsoft's celebration of PC users is intended to show them connected to this community of people who are creative, who are passionate."
Intended reading: (Microsoft) PC users are creative and passionate. They form a community.

MDN's deliberate misreading: (Microsoft) PC users are connected via the internet to a community of creative, passionate people who use Macs.
Hence the MDN take: "Is it really a winning sales tactic to celebrate the fact that hundreds of thousands of Internet traffic-clogging Windows PC spambots are connected via TCP/IP to creative, passionate Mac users?"

Sep 18, 08 - 04:28 pm Comment from: TowerTone

They should have canned Vista and kept Seinfeld....