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$500 million for what? M$ shareholders should riot.

Aug 12, 08 - 08:41 am Comment from: CYxodus

This ad campaign will go down as a textbook example of what not to do. Classic desperation tactics.

Aug 12, 08 - 08:46 am Comment from: CYxodus

From the MSNBC article:

"Microsoft takes a page from movie promoters and pulls a one-liner from a long review of Vista. The company boasts that The New York Times "raved" about the operating system when it first came out, writing "Windows Vista is beautiful."

In fact, the Times was talking about the actual physical appearance of Vista, not the compatibility issues and other problems users have complained about. The actual article’s headline reads: "Vista Wins on Looks. As for Lacks …" "

New slogan:
"Windows Vista. It doesn't suck as bad as you think. Honest."

Live from the back room in a mall near you:

"Hey, come here. Yeah, I'm talking to you dipshit. Now sit down and watch this convincing demonstration. Hold on. I need to reboot. I said sit down or you'll have to return the money we gave you. O.K., now watch these Microsoft employ . . . um, I mean average people off the street enjoy the most fabulous and exciting innovations ever in computer user interfaces. I don't think you're paying attention. HEY! WE'VE GOT A RUNNER! CODE NINE! I REPEAT WE'VE GOT A CODE NINE! Who took my Taser?"

Aug 12, 08 - 08:55 am Comment from: Demon

"Allison Linn writes for MSNBC"

I guess Allison wanted a new Job because MSNBC does not create critical Stories about Microsoft.

I fact they did use a generic iPodish looking image in the Podcast graphics. Till MS complained now the image is clearly a Zune.

Aug 12, 08 - 08:56 am Comment from: British Mac Head

Hang on. Doesn't the MS part of MSNBC stand for MicroSoft?

PMSL. Now they are slating their own products.

I love it!!!!

This is fantastic

Zune Tang, What's your take on this one kid?

Aug 12, 08 - 08:57 am Comment from: British Mac Head

Awww! Demon, you beat me to it squire

Aug 12, 08 - 09:01 am Comment from: Jay-Z

If they really wanted to make this a legitimate experiment, they should have given people a copy of "Mojave" and a camera and let them install it on their own computers and try to use it with their existing peripherals. Anything can look great in a controlled environment; Macs work well because they ARE a controlled hardware/software environment.

Aug 12, 08 - 09:03 am Comment from: DLMeyer

CYxodus, when you are in as deep a hole as they are, you have little left BUT "desperation tactics". They introduced Vista well ahead of when Apple introduced Leopard and couldn't get any traction against Tiger. Then along came Leopard and they STILL couldn't get any traction. What are they supposed to do??? First thing they tried was announcing they were already working on Vista's "replacement". To which Apple announced that "Snow Leopard" would be essentially a "clean-up" OS, fixing a long list of annoyances and dumping PPC systems - No New Features (well, mostly). And they still can't manufacture any traction for Vista!
This is about as deadly a response to a new product as they could ever imagine. The market was theirs to lose ... so they did. What's Apple? A niche player selling expensive models - worth every penny, perhaps, but still priced near the top of everyone else's lines. Apple has had little traction in the larger Enterprise market, relying on sales directly to consumers. Suddenly the Enterprise is waking up to the fact that OSX=Unix and that there really is little difficulty in supporting a multi-platform house - despite what the panicky IT drones have been claiming, to maintain Job Security, for many years.
So, yeah. MS is getting desperate. They are a year or more away from any hope of regaining traction. Apple will grow by a couple more % in that time - and that's a conservative guesstimate. Who knows what it will actually be, given the new "markets" that are opening up to them. Like Enterprise. Like some foreign markets that have been under-served until recently. Once Apple GAINS traction in these markets, the best MS can hope for is to slow their growth - forget about taking it back.
That's just my opinion, of course.

"Allison Linn writes for MSNBC"

Update. Allison Linn polishes the plumbing with a toothbrush twelve hours a day inside the Redmond Gulag. Her family and friends were told that she was sent away to a nice family with a farm somewhere so that she could run and play and be forever happy.

"$500 million for what? M$ shareholders should riot."

Frankly, I think that the shareholders should riot over all the $s that were sunk into Vista itself. I would imagine that $500M is just a drop in the bucket compared to that!
All of that time in the oven to produce such an underdone turkey.

Microsoft Bakery!

Half baked ideas used to trample their users like old fashioned bakers trampling a huge lump of dough!

Mr. B: "How will the dough take shape?"
SW Engineer: "I don't know just yet, but I think we can use the Zune's mould as a baking sheet".
Mr. B: "Good idea! If we get them to eat a zune loaf everyday, we will be in the dough! ho! ho! hooo!!! I am too funny sometimes, Is it hot in here? I am sweating like a P**!"
SW Engineer: "Yes it is, it is all those chairs preventing the air from recycling. Do you think you could throw them out?"
Mr. B: "Throw them out? Me??? Am I good at marketing? or am I good at marketing".
SW Engineer: "Puff! Puff!! Yes you are!"
Crash! Bang! Thud!!!
Mr. B: "Now that is what I call throwing out!" "Now if only I can convince people that Vista by any other name is not Vista.....hmmm, I wonder were I heard that quote from?"

The proof is in the pudding.

Aug 12, 08 - 09:19 am Comment from: pastrychef

This has to be the worst $500M ever spent. Whomever approved of this campaign needs to get fired.

Aug 12, 08 - 09:19 am Comment from: HMCIV

Forget the Mojave. How about the fact that MSNBC is doing an article about how bad Vista is!!!

That's Fraking bad!

Aug 12, 08 - 09:20 am Comment from: hagar57

Hasta la vista, Vista!

Windows 7 is to be called WindowsUX when released. A M$ spokesdroid said today.

Aug 12, 08 - 09:33 am Comment from: Mr. Reeee

It's pretty stunning that MS has come to this. MS started and beat their competition as bottom feeders using lies, deception and thievery to sell their wares. The industry finally got wise to their tactics, since the Dept. of Jusstiss let MS off the hook.

HD DVD died because numerous industries banded together because they didn't want MS dictating, controlling and profiting from more of their inferior tech. The world learned from the Misery of Windows that was pawned off on everyone.

+++++++++++++++++

DLMeyer... "What's Apple? A niche player selling expensive models - worth every penny, perhaps, but still priced near the top of everyone else's lines."

You're not serious about that are you? You fell for that MS shill piece last week? Sure, you can buy some generic DOSBox™ for $299 with half the components you need missing. But, if you try to equally spec a Mac with a name brand PC, Macs usually cost about the same, if not cheaper. Plus, Apple uses better components.

Crabapple. Crabapple? Were you trying to be funny? Please stop before you hurt someone.

Aug 12, 08 - 09:34 am Comment from: Big Al

It's on MSNBC so it should be propaganda but it isn't.

Why not? Because in the comments every Paid Microsoft Troll™ has been ordered to make multiple posts praising Vista and it's zero flaws on their computers. Oh, and they all use Macs as well but they really prefer Vista.

For every IT guy that says stick with XP, there are 2 Paid Microsoft Troll™ guys posing as IT guys saying Vista is ready for prime time now.

It's all another screwy Microsoft ad campaign that isn't thoroughly developed until you read the comments.

OH! You guyses crack me up. :D

"Crabapple. Crabapple? Were you trying to be funny? Please stop before you hurt someone."

Now, now. Be nice. It was actually pretty good for existential improv theater. Try the veal. It's topped with capers and comes with a side of baby squash in brown butter.

from the article: "Microsoft says it polled 140 people, and most of them liked "Mojave" better than they thought they’d like Vista."

So of these 140 people (wow, what a huge sample!) only 71 of them had to claim that they thought Mojave was better than what they 'thought' Vista was like. ...(Speculation your honor! ... Overruled!! The defense may proceed.) We don't know 'how much better' they thought it was... they could have said 'marginally better' for all we know. We don't know what the range of choices was for their rating scale... maybe 'marginally better' was the lowest score possible?

It's hilarious that MS is conducting this poll .... not to determine whether Vista is better than a competitors product, but whether these 140 people thought it was any better at all than what they may have heard on the street and in comparison to their own (nearly) seven year old operating system, Windows XP.

Actually, we don't even know if these 140 people even use a computer!

Check out this quote from Jim Goldman this morning on Google's email being down last night. Love the Vista quote. Adois Mojave.

In this case, Google got itself righted in 90 minutes. Not bad. I mean, if your computer at home crashed, and you're running Microsoft's Vista, that's about equal to your reboot-time. All this merely points to the potential pitfalls of Cloud Computing. Nice buzzword, lots of promise, lots of potential rewards, but certainly not without problems, too.

MS = The world's new comparison of poor run, poorly done everything from software, Big %$# tables, and advertising.

"They introduced Vista well ahead of when Apple introduced Leopard and couldn't get any traction against Tiger. Then along came Leopard and they STILL couldn't get any traction. "

Unless you define "Traction" as Vista achieving 5x the entire existing Mac user base in the time it's been on sale, you might be right. But only in your fanboy dreams.

Even with all the bad press Vista is substantially beating Apple where in counts, in the marketplace.

All the Mojave experiment points out is how a bunch of ignorant people will make up their minds about a product without having any actual experience of it. As such it should be instructive to Mac fanboys.

Aug 12, 08 - 09:59 am Comment from: MusicDoc

@: @DLDreamer
Ooo, look a little MS troll! Go back under the bridge, troll.

Aug 12, 08 - 10:03 am Comment from: Timbo

"All the Mojave experiment points out is how a bunch of ignorant people will make up their minds about a product without having any actual experience of it."

He gets it. That is MS's attitude - it's the stupid user's fault.

MikeH, re "$500 million for what? M$ shareholders should riot..."

Fear not. They are revolting.

I just can imagine the Hello im a mac, and im mojave commercial....

Just by imagining it i am already pissing my pants laughing out loud

Re: @DLDreamer

Well I will concede the market share but only since they had that already. It's a "cheap" statistic of sorts.

The real issues with Vista you cannot deny. The fact that internal Microsoft memos alone show they knew the OS wasn't ready and one famous exec complaining about a "Vista Capable" machine not being able to actually run Vista when he got it home.

Oh and the fact that most PC vendors are still trying to ship XP on their systems for as long as they can.

You can try to excuse it all you want, the OS was a pile of garbage with a pretty interface. Windows 2000 server to be exact. Sure Apple has dumped out some buggy stuff before but Apple does more then make software. That's really all Microsoft does. And they produce that?

Microsoft needs to clean house and write a clean OS from the bottom up. Put in an emulation layer to older systems but make the core OS from scratch if possible.

Or better yet, base it on Unix or Linux! (ngh)

You can only slap so many layers of paint on top of an old car before it's just the paint holding it together.

Now I know you might say Unix is even older and you would be right. But there's a reason it's still around and kicking. It's stable, robust and a pretty damn secure overall. Perfect? No but compared to other OSes out there it works pretty damn well. Windows was never designed "right" it's always been a hodgepodge of patches and clumps of cobbled together code.

We all know Microsoft has never played shall we say "fair" when it comes to others. The bottom line is with that market share they never had to stoop to the level they do to get where they are at. With Vista you see you can't market a product that at the bottom line isn't good and make it a success. I mean look at the Zune. Microsoft would have been better off staying out of the hardware end of that and made a music website all could go to regardless of platform or device and do what iTunes does now. That's what that company is supposed to be doing. Making software for all companies. That's what they claim they want to do.

Face it, MSFT is turning into IBM but faster and more dysfunctional then they where. If they didn't have Windows and Office they would be sunk and those won't last forever.

Aug 12, 08 - 10:29 am Comment from: TowerTone

Mojave Experiment?

More like Death Valley....

Aug 12, 08 - 10:31 am Comment from: Jubei

It's not a "virtual" monopoly MSNBC, it is A MONOPOLY.

@DLDreamer: When starting from different points, it's the % change that counts, not the numbers. I know you're going to try to skew what I'm saying with your troll-like ways, but in that case, you need to get an education. Take a statistics class, or even basic logic. You're a troll. Face it. And the more trolls there are, the more scared Windows fanboys are getting, so you're hurting your own case just by posting.

Loser.

And, many of us I'm sure have tried Vista. I have. A little better than XP in some ways, not as good in other ways, but pure badly copied and still junky Windows. Absolute garbage. Continue using it... you deserve it.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Matt Damon to star in a film adaptation of Robert Ludlum's final unpublished thriller, "The Mojave Experiment." The plot involves an amnesiac assasin who decides to wreak swift retribution upon a giant software corporation and its executives when his computer's supposedly advanced operating system causes him nothing but persistent aggravation.

And don't forget MS's twisted sales numbers. Have to take that into consideration. Not as many Vista's sold as they say, and many of them are downgraded to XP.

Aug 12, 08 - 10:44 am Comment from: ElderNorm

@MusicDoc,

Right on. Its nice to see that I am not the only one to spot these guys.

@DLDreamer,

You are so funny. "Even with all the bad press Vista is substantially beating Apple where in counts, in the marketplace." Hmmm, like HP points out, yea Microsoft is taking credit for Vista sales but the systems are running XP.

Ha Ha Ha, Just so funny.

Aug 12, 08 - 10:50 am Comment from: MusicDoc

@ElderNorm

You got it, my friend!

I also question his statement about Vista alone having "5X the user base" since it seems like the Mac share of overall base grows larger each day.....with a consequent shrinking of the Windows base.

I also liked Chris' statement about the escalating number of trolls making appearances!

If I were a Microsoft employee I would be bailing out about now....

Can you imagine having to defend your company against all this shit all the time??

M$ should stop everything and give the monney back to the shareholders!
PC users are no more these naive ignorants they used to be! Now the masks are falling and people start to see the windows have always been dirty! )))))

Aug 12, 08 - 11:16 am Comment from: Buster

Mojave experiment...what an appropriate name. Vista is barren like the desert, empty like the ghost towns in it and the whole experiment is halfbaked anyway.

Aug 12, 08 - 11:26 am Comment from: Roberto

Is there real sidewinder in those Snake Cakes™?

You guys have it all wrong. The Mojave experiment is a RAGING success. I hope Microsoft continues it...heck, I hope they do it again and again and again.

At $300m a pop, it's practically free advertising.


...for OSX. =)

"we don’t know whether the people they show are a representative sample of the public"

BINGO.

Film 1000 people eating dirt and tell them it's a tasty new fiber supplement. 5 of them will say it's "a lot better than I expected!" and there you've got your ad campaign!

"@DLDreamer: When starting from different points, it's the % change that counts, not the numbers."

So Vista started from what, 0% market share? What percentage did Leopard start from? Exactly 0%

Percentages of other existing operating systems in service mean nothing. Both Vista and Leopard were competing for the same customers, and the customers have been overwhelmingly choosing Vista.

"Microsoft is taking credit for Vista sales but the systems are running XP. Ha Ha Ha, Just so funny."

Look at MDN's favorite Net Apps site which measures actual systems in use. There Vista is at 17% of installed base (Not share of sales which has to be much higher to generate that number, installed base actually running the browser) compared to Apple's 5% for all Intel Mac OS X versions. Are you suggesting MDN are fudging these numbers?

Funny. very Funny.

So Vista is only a failure in the minds of journalists and Mac fanboys. And why do you get so upset about this Mojave thing? Because it proves in a neutral blind test environment, people's perceptions of Visa are flat out wrong and they think Vista is great. It explodes the myth you've been fed by the media, and taken hook line and sinker.

Would MS like to sell more Vista, sure. They'd like to be at 90% of PCs running Vista by now. Would Apple love to have Vistas's sales "problem". Sure, they'd be excited if they were doing anywhere near as well.

Aug 12, 08 - 02:46 pm Comment from: Hm...

To @DLDreamer

Thanks for the laugh (I'm still chuckling) - I needed one today. That's the funniest post I've read in a while.

Aug 12, 08 - 03:47 pm Comment from: Digital Mercenary

@DLDreamer,

What a fallacious statement that people are buying it in droves. The proper term for Windows and Vista is not "the most popular operating system" but rather "the most imposed operating system", since enterprise users don't get a choice of which operating system they would like to use.

The argument that Vista and OS X are marketing to the same audience is also fallacious since Apple doesn't market to enterprise. If you look at just the SOHO and home markets, Leopard is eating significantly into Microsoft's market share. Don't believe it? Look at Microsoft's latest quarterly numbers. They missed their own estimates.

Don't believe that XP downgrades are being counted as Vista sales? Steve Ballmer publicly announced a few months ago that henceforth XP sales would count as Vista sales. This was after again backing down on the end date for XP sales.

"What a fallacious statement that people are buying it in droves"

Ok, I guess where you come from a couple of hundred million people are not "Droves". Because you live in the Mac world, people are deserting Windows in Droves and that means a few hundred thousand extra sales a quarter. My mistake. We now have a measure we can call the "Apple Fanboy Drove". Vista has been sold to thousands of "Apple Fanboy Droves" of customers.

"If you look at just the SOHO and home markets, Leopard is eating significantly into Microsoft's market share"

But what you call "significant" is in reality less than an extra half a percentage point when looked at in terms of worldwide sales. Despite Apple's recent gains, which are a big deal for a company with such a small market share, they're really not having that much effect on Windows sales.

"Don't believe that XP downgrades are being counted as Vista sales?"

The source I'm using is one MDN frequently relies on and measures OS versions in actual use, so how Microsoft counted them when sold is irrelevant. And for sure Microsoft's number is probably higher.

Aug 12, 08 - 04:42 pm Comment from: Buster

Isn't 'fallacious' illegal in some states?

@DLDreamer....sigh...yet another poor imitation of old tiresome Zune Tang...cripes guys get a life.
Apple's market cap is catching up on MS. At some point, I don't care how many copies MS sells, they will be irrelevant.

And that's al I have to say on that subject...

"Isn't 'fallacious' illegal in some states?"

Only where mouthing off is illogical.

"Apple's market cap is catching up on MS. "

I'm pretty sure by "catching" you mean trying to get back to where it was a gear ago. You can't catch someone by running in the opposite direction. Someone should tell Steve that.

Aug 13, 08 - 01:56 am Comment from: 84 Mac Guy

I'm telling you, Apple could gain a few more quick market share points if it just gave Microsoft another $500M to expand their ad campaign.

The probability of Microsoft creating a successful ad is the same as the probability of a blind man solving Rubik's cube.