New Ad campaign by Microsoft..."Start Something"

[JFreak]

Are they trying to get people to update?

yes. that is the bread and butter. there has actually been only three major windows versions (1.0-3.11, 95/98/me, nt/w2k/xp) and still they have been making gazillions out of it. unbelievably great marketing!!

so longhorn will be the fourth windows system and actually deserves good marketing campaign and presumably will be worth its upgrade price. that is perfectly ok. it's just so very sad that there are people who have bought every single one of the ten windows versions that microsoft calls a "major" upgrade...

 

[JFreak]

The icon for a Word document, for example, is a tiny iteration of the first page of the file.

i'm sure every CEO in the world will just love this feature...

 

[JFreak]

The new automatic update feature now lets you restart your PC almost automatically.

what a great feature. makes me want to buy a new computer that would be able to restart itself automatically and faster than ever after every update (which i feel are almost hourly). wo-hoo, what a great day for human kind that you can finally restart the computer with little effort. wonderful!! in the future i will just be restarting my computer all day long...

 

[Silencio]

I was listening to NPR on the way home last night and their 'tech watch' person was speaking about Microsoft's campaign as a lead in for Longhorn.
Duh. But then she SHOCKED me by saying the part of the reason it was kicked off was because of the Adobe/Macromedia merger. And then proceeded to talk about how "Adobomedia" (Macrobe?) stated that their products would run on anything, anywhere, following up with how this pissed Microsoft off because these Adobomedia product were going to be able to run without a Microsoft OS. She THEN (heavily) alluded to Adobomedia producing an OS-like piece of software that would run their products. So M$ started their Longhorn campaign.

Uh, right -- Adobe and Macromedia announced their merger this Monday, so M$ whipped out an ad campaign and got it on major broadcast and online ad slots instantaneously?

If she has that little clue about how marketing campaigns are created, then I sure wouldn't trust her views on technology issues, either. A major marketing push like this takes a good 6-9 months from the first brief to the first ad airing.

I don't see this campaign as targeted at Macrobe in any way, shape or form. It's clearly a load of FUD targeted at alternative platforms to Windows. I really wish Apple would come out with a similarly wide-reaching campaign to dispel those myths and promote the strengths of the Macintosh platform. Apple is wise, though, to hold off on this until Tiger is out there and they can release a round of more compelling hardware. Some rumors are already pointing in the direction of a renewed/improved "Switcher" campaign.

 

[iArtificialLife]

i think i will try this new totally "original" Start Somthing thing from Microcrap


"PEOPLE,PEOPLE COME DUMP AND BURN YOUR CRAPPY WINTEL,VIRUSE RIDDEN,FUGLY BEIGE PIECES O' CRAP"

see microcrap, i am starting my own computer disposal business

 

[840quadra]

and so many people on here say that Microsoft dosen't feel Apple in their market share.

Funny, this seems to say they do take notice.

 

[vieoray]

just saw one of these ads on tv. honestly, they're not very good. big surprise there. they just look so dated and clunky...like an old broken down freezer sitting in a garage. all sorts of little icons float around on the screen and it leads to showing a window in a house that transforms into the windows logo. really good stuff.

 

[mad jew]

and so many people on here say that Microsoft dosen't feel Apple in their market share.

Funny, this seems to say they do take notice.

I think Microsoft see their older versions of Windows as more competition than Apple is. They're wanting people to upgrade to XP. If it were corporate-based advertising, there's more competition from Linux distributions than OSX. As much as I hate to admit it, I really think Microsoft just sees Apple as a company that provides them with ideas to claim they'll include in future OS upgrades.

 

[840quadra]

I think Microsoft see their older versions of Windows as more competition than Apple is. They're wanting people to upgrade to XP. If it were corporate-based advertising, there's more competition from Linux distributions than OSX. As much as I hate to admit it, I really think Microsoft just sees Apple as a company that provides them with ideas to claim they'll include in future OS upgrades.

possibly,

but the timing of this? So close to the Tiger release? The article mentions this, and it looks obvious.

I really hope Apple gets off of their A** and start doing some TV ads for the Mini, and OSX.

Besites shoppers, and people in the know. The Mini still dosen't exist.