Microsoft's New Vista Ad Campaign: Microsoft Mojave

[sfh]

Stupid people

"Look we got together all these people who have never seen vista but think it's bad. We lied to them and said that it's a newer better version of windows and now they like it"

Simple psychology - you tell someone that something is better and new, show a little dazzle and *bam* magically they agree.

my second point...
seriously I'm pretty sure it's illegal to have that many idiots in one place at a time... where have they been that they don't know what vista looks like? and then we get mad when they say "this is much better than nay mac os" do you really think they have seen or used OSX ... even the most hardcore windows users feel that twist in their gut when they sit down at a mac and realize that they are fighting an uphill battle with windows.

 

[ZiggyPastorius]

yeah, you wonder where did those stereotype perceptions come from...

This is the only thing I disagree with you on, Clevin. I highly doubt the small percentage of the 3% of computer users who use Macs caused the entire Vista-hating thing. As for everything else, I agree.

I think the execution was kind of bad, but the idea is really good. While I tend to recommend OS X to friends and such, when friends of mine bash Vista a lot, I tend to just smile and nod. My friend who lives with me hates Windows because my ****** desktop computer is terrible. For that reason, everything that goes wrong is Windows' fault and he doesn't want anything to do with it unless he has to. Maybe not him, but perhaps a lot of Vista bashing can go away with this.

 

[BongoBanger]

Vista sucks, stop it. I wrked on a P$ 3Ghz and 4GB ram and it was slow and crap. 1,6Ghz cpu on a crappy mb? LOL

Wait... a P4 with 4MB RAM?

Tell me the mobo and config please. Go on.

 

[BongoBanger]

i can't wait till what apple has to say about it.

Neither can I after the whole Mobile Me and buggy iPhone firmware issue.

 

[daveporter]

I have read the "mac is better" no "PCs are better" rhetoric for years. In reality, I can't understand why so many people take the choice of other so personally. Its as if some folks were rooting for a favorite football team, religion, political party, etc. when in reality were talking about a tool here.

I don't believe that it is the "fan-boys" from either camp that purchase the majority of computers. It is the users who don't know one from the other until they are showed the differences by someone and business people who make decisions on IT purchases based on real-life business factors.

The fact that the Mac platform is gaining in market share is largely due to Microsoft's Vista blunders (and there are many, not just technical but business and marketing oriented as well) and the willingness of typical mom and pop users to try OS X to see if they would like it. This is a unique situation for Apple; one that they have not found themselves in for a very long time. If they don't blow it (and there are many pitfalls ahead) then OS X and Apple has a chance to put a dent in Microsoft's domination of the desktop PC world.

I believe that word-of-mouth praise from one new Mac user to current PC using friends and business associates does more to sell Macs then any advertisement that Apples has done.

Dave

 

[mitchellh]

So I don't get it... why are they using Adobe Flash Player if they have their own technology: Silverlight?

 

[Random Rob]

I would like to see those same people try to install vista on their on computers and get feedback after they have used it for a week or so. lol

I would bet that would change the attitude of the customer. I work in IT and have friends in computer retail. And the thing i hear over and over again is that in the store Vista looked nice and work well and then a week later they come back complaining.

 

[compuguy1088]

If you read down this thread, more then half of the comments are about how Vista is terrible, or Vista is slow. BUT, if Apple did the same type of experiment with Mac OS X, people would be praising it. It's a great marketing idea by Microsoft, and people are too hypocritical about Vista just because of what people complain about. I have Vista on my machine, and I love it.

But hey, that's my two cents.

I have vista as well on my desktop (x64), and it is a great os for what I do. I also have a Macbook Pro and love OS X .

Well I may have exagerated a bit BUT im not far off.

1Gb is BARE minumum of vista... running vista on 1Gb is hell... I know because I have done it

2Gb vista will run decently... i've used many Vaio laptops with 2Gb and yeah it runs and starts up alright... but you'll still find yourself waiting 2-3 seconds every now and then, like switching between lots of windows in the task bar (an example I been through was switching between a IE window and an iTunes window consistently... I found I had to wait a few seconds every time i went to click the IE window again... maybe IE just sucks... but thats ironic cause its made by microsoft.)

3GB yeah vista will run well, you'll most likely never run into issues unless your using some heavy programs.

4GB Vista will run flawlessly... no issues ever most likely. SINCE microsoft wanted vista to look as good as possible to these people in the ads im positive microsoft used VERY high specs. Why wouldnt they?

Dont argue with me because I've used vista ALOT as well so I know.

I've been using it as well....Visa x64 screams with 4gbs of ram. I just think the memory manager of Vista seems to work a whole lot better with 2 gigabytes of ram or more.

 

[RaZaK]

okay. this fixes EVERYTHING

So, in order to generate some good press, they're lying to people (new Mojave OS) to try and make up for the original lie (Vista was ready to ship at launch).

Great strategy. Clearly, advertising money well spent, and I'm sure Uncle Stevie is quaking in his office.

 

[stevearm]

I think it's a great little ad that doesn't resort to pathetic bashings of competing OS's. Does it's job and is probably very accurate, Vista has a very negative image which isn't warranted. I personally find OS X unusable.

But I'm not surprised the last few pages of die hard Apple fanboys have bashed this Vista ad, it's to be expected from certain types of Apple fans.

 

[Much Ado]

I personally find OS X unusable.

Unusable?

No axe to grind, then?

 

[daveporter]

I personally find OS X unusable.

But I'm not surprised the last few pages of die hard Apple fanboys have bashed this Vista ad, it's to be expected from certain types of Apple fans.

Your statements are not supported by any information, facts, intelligent reasoning or any other intellectual justification and are therefore without merit which to me indicates that you sir are a troll. If I did not know that your just trolling I would take the time to debate you.

Dave

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

I personally find OS X unusable.

But I'm not surprised the last few pages of die hard Apple fanboys have bashed this Vista ad, it's to be expected from certain types of Apple fans.

unusable? Is that because you don't have access to a Mac? Thus you can't use it.

We're bashing the ad, because it's a ridiculous ploy. It's the exact same concept as the Carls jr commercials, thus proving once again that Microsoft can't come up with an original idea.

 

[nomar383]

Hey, I did like those Whopper commercials lol:

PEOPLE FREAKED

I still laugh everytime I think about someone freaking out about not being able to get a whopper.

I know this is OT, but someone mentioned the similarity earlier

 

[benspratling]

It will make a difference

I think these new Microsoft ads are basically saying "the folks who told you Vista is bad are lying." They're telling folks that they've been duped by Apple's ads. It will make a difference when these ads hit tv.

But I'm not one of those folks who forms my opinion on something without getting the facts. Admittedly, Windows Looky-Looky (rough Spanish paraphrase of "Vista") has a much nicer-looking interface than did XP. Instead of making me want to lick it, which was one of Aqua's requirements, Aero makes me want to sneeze. Their transparency to a blah whispy background reminds me of the dust particles that would dance in the sunlight beam in my room as a kid. Their overuse of this "snaz" in places that true design professionals consider to be "necessary whitespace" will no doubt have some designers looking at Windows oddly.

Anyway, my point: I've had the "opportunity" to see Vista for myself, and besides its new shininess, I had real problems actually using it. I found it frustrating.

There's this difference between Apple and Microsoft. Apple is about making your interface mirror reality, like: things stacked on top of each other cast shadows; in contrast to Windows in which things stacked on top of other things are partially transparent to things that are below both. In Mac OS X, you can click in the shadows and the things there will come forward. In Vista clicking on the things you can see but are blocked by "glass" is frustrating since you have to look for that one pixel line that tells you where the glass ends and find a way to grab the item out from behind the glass, instead of a nice gaussian blur gradient that's easy to see at any resolution.

In Mac OS X, the eye candy makes me want to lick it, while in Windows "Pretty", it makes me want to sneeze. Clear winner: Apple; but watch out, these new commercials will have an impact in MS's favor.

 

[kingtj]

Great comment, Hrududu!

This is EXACTLY what I found with Vista. People who haven't used it yet typically have a negative opinion of it, based simply upon what they've read, heard from others who DID use it, AND the natural resistance to change from what they're familiar and efficient using (typically Windows XP).

On the other hand, the people who say the most POSITIVE things about Vista tend to be those who haven't really "put it through its paces" yet. They're still excited that they just recently purchased it (most often with a whole new computer system), and they're impressed with the pretty looks and special f/x it offers. Since they're using it on all new hardware, they haven't yet run into the frustrations of unsupported devices in it, or grown tired of all the "allow or cancel?" type dialog boxes that will haunt them every time they do software updates or installations (at least, by default). They haven't usually done lots of heavy file copying over their LAN between machines, to realize it seems slower than XP or Windows 2000 did. And they probably haven't used it for hours in various applications, enough to get that nagging feeling that the GUI is "less responsive to user input" than XP was. (I certainly noticed that, when I started using it with 2 or 3 apps at once. If one was writing to the hard drive or busy processing in some fashion, I often got "lag" in response to my mouse clicks, because Vista acted like it had more important things to do with its CPU time than pay attention to me, the user, until it finished another task.)

So they're willing to change their opinions after using it for maybe 5 min? I'm sorry, but you can't make a good assessment of an OS until you've actually put it on your computer and used it day in and day out. Lets get an update from these people after using Vista for a month and see if they still love it so much.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Your statements are not supported by any information, facts, intelligent reasoning or any other intellectual justification and are therefore without merit which to me indicates that you sir are a troll. If I did not know that your just trolling I would take the time to debate you.

Just another Microsoft shill. I've noticed that the mix of forum members has been shifting in this direction with the success of the iPhone and iPod.

 

[CalmEnvy]

Meh, that's there ad? Pretty lame if you ask me, I still wouldn't get Vista. I've used it when I was doing my co-op and god I hated it. It was like Windows Millennium all over again.

 

[goinskiing]

Boring

Wow, I thought they might have put a little more effort into promoting Vista. Don't get me wrong, I use Vista at work and home all the time and actually like it quite well, but I think the marketing strategy here seems, well...drab. If I were M$oft, I would try a more "whiz-bang" approach. That's just me though.

 

[stevearm]

unusable? Is that because you don't have access to a Mac? Thus you can't use it.

We're bashing the ad, because it's a ridiculous ploy. It's the exact same concept as the Carls jr commercials, thus proving once again that Microsoft can't come up with an original idea.

And yet Apple basing their entire OS X tv advertising on bashing Microsoft for years and years on end, is ok? I imagine the Microsoft fanboys are bashing every new 'Get a Mac' ad out there as well, and they have reason to.

Your statements are not supported by any information, facts, intelligent reasoning or any other intellectual justification and are therefore without merit which to me indicates that you sir are a troll. If I did not know that your just trolling I would take the time to debate you.

Dave

A vast number of the Microsoft bashing posts in this forum don't have any intelligent reasoning or facts to back it up. Does that mean most die-hard Apple fanboys are trolls as well?

Unusable?

No axe to grind, then?

I do indeed find it unusable. Which is a shame as the interface is gorgeous, but operating it is a chore. I use macs at work and can't stand it. Little things like 4 controller buttons, NO FULL SCREEN corner button WTF?, the dock getting in the way of everything, even finder isn't as good as Windows explorer, even with its fancy cover flow view. I find XP far superior. That's not trolling, it's my opinion. And 95% of the world seems to agree.

Just because someone doesn't bow down to the alter of $J and Apple/OS X doesn't make them a troll.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

I do indeed find it unusable. Which is a shame as the interface is gorgeous, but operating it is a chore. I use macs at work and can't stand it. Little things like 4 controller buttons, NO FULL SCREEN corner button WTF?, the dock getting in the way of everything, even finder isn't as good as Windows explorer, even with its fancy cover flow view. I find XP far superior. That's not trolling, it's my opinion. And 95% of the world seems to agree.

ahhh so unusable was a gross exaggeration. Since when do all windows apps have a Full Screen mode? Are you talking about Maximizing a window? HUGE difference there. 4 modifier keys? As opposed to Windows Vista's... four? The dock can be hidden... just like the taskbar, in fact there isn't any reason it gets in the way more than the taskbar. There are finder replacements btw. Czech out PathFinder.

And 95% of the world seems to agree.

ahhh there it is. The band wagon approach. You know who also agrees with this? 99.9% of malware coders

 

[kironin]

Of course the real question is would they hold the same opinion after installing it and using it for 30, 60, or 90 days on their own hardware in the real world.

that's the commercial I would want to see.

this one session conversion.... well you have no idea what they did to come to this conclusion. How long did they have with it ? What psychology was employed to color they experience. You could imagine a lot of suggestions being implanted in the way it was sold to them as this new wiz bang OS with a carefully guided tour. What would it be like for a user that did not have a Microsoft guy leading them by the hand through a already set up and smoothly working machine?

What would have been the response if Mojave was sold as a new, vastly improved XP and their guided through some gee-whiz I did not know you could do that with XP stuff. Just how knowledgeable were these people with XP ?


I can think of some really funny comeback ads by Apple....

 

[AlexisV]

Why are they selling their OS as if it was a brand of washing powder?

The only thing that's missing is the strapline:

"It's not as bad as you've heard. Honest"

The funny thing is that actually worked for Skoda, when Volkswagen bought them; because it was ironic. MS don't do irony or humour.

And yet Apple basing their entire OS X tv advertising on bashing Microsoft for years and years on end, is ok? I imagine the Microsoft fanboys are bashing every new 'Get a Mac' ad out there as well, and they have reason to.

Maybe so, but at least they're amusing, witty and clever.

 

[IJ Reilly]

MS don't do irony or humour.

Not that they're aware of, no.

 

[hobo.hopkins]

Makes me laugh...

I just HAD to register to post a comment about this ad campaign. (or marketing ploy, if you wish to call it that)

I love how when something goes wrong within the realm of Apple, like the MobileMe rocky start, Apple admits that there were failures, keeps you updated on its progress, and offers you freebies to "make it up" to you. This is just great for any company to do, especially one as big as Apple. This just makes me, a customer who wasn't completely satisfied with MobileMe from the beginning, happy again. I'm not claiming that Apple is perfect - but they don't pretend to be.

Microsoft, on the other hand, tells their customers "Vista isn't bad. We didn't make mistakes. You've just heard wrong things and believed them. Therefore, you were wrong about Vista." I HATE this. I don't think Vista is quite as bad (it's still bad, but not quite as bad) as many portray it, but by taking this approach Microsoft is basically saying that it was perfect, is perfect, and everyone should love it. (which isn't at all the truth)

For me, if Microsoft would just admit to mistakes, keep me updated on their work to improve their products, and attempt to follow the philosophy that "the customer is always right" I just might not hate them so damn much. Instead they tell me that I'm wrong? Great approach Microsoft...