New Microsoft Ad Campaign Targets Mac Prices

[jayducharme]

It's interesting to me that MS cut off the price at $1000. Sure it's a nice round number. But why not $500? That really would have cut the competition down, and still would have gotten a bargain basement PC.

What if MS had given their hunters $1500? I wonder how many then would have gone with a MacBook? Miss "I'm-not-cool-enough?"

 

[rpaloalto]

In the video at 0:32 she picks up a net book and says ''This Is like A Phone''

 

[floatingspirit]

Oh My God!!!

Until I read this thread I HAD NO IDEA WHAT THAT STUPID SLOT MACHINE AD WAS ABOUT! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL I thought it might be a Mac add, but I did get it at first glance so I just ignored it! YOU STINK AT EVERYTHING MICROSOFT!

 

[Goona]

Exactly, let me also say that they are a bit overpriced but what they do offer (overpriced or not) nobody else pretty much does. Same with macs, i would ask anyone to get me AT ANY PRICE a great looking pc with unibody or a better os than os x? Can you? No. So the fact that apple charges a tad more for something no one else even sells is really irrelevant.

How anybody can compare a top of the line to this HP brick is just absurd.

 

[asdavis10]

Do people think that Apple stores are free? When you buy a Mac you get the stores as a resource too. What other computer manufacturer allows it customers to have such easy access to tech support? Simply go to an Apple store for a free appointment where you can actually talk to someone face to face. And if your computer needs repairs, then you can leave it there instead of waiting for someone to send you a box to ship it in. Now if someone prefers getting tech support over the phone from Dell, HP, Sony, ect., then they are perfectly right to buy their computers from them. Now there are some people who just can't afford a Mac or don't want to wait til they can afford a Mac. And that's unfortunate as Apple has, rightfully, decided that the low-end computer market is not where they want to be. Now I know there are other reasons why people choose Windows PC's but since the ad focused on price, I thought I would too.

 

[pismodude2]

This add was staged, she didn't even go into the Apple Store!

Kind of funny, makes you wonder if the director thought she would change her mind and go with the Mac


"Lauren" (if that is her real name) didn't really go into the Apple store...or Crispin Porter had a bunch of extras walking around during the filming.

How do we know? Notice at 0:13 when she walks into the store, there is a balding guy with jacket and striped shirt and camera walking by. He is still walking by when she leaves the store filmed on the other camera. That gave her less than a second in the store. She said she walked in and looked around but how could this be?.

We also know she is an actress so the rest isn't a stretch. What LA actress wants a hulking, cheap 17 inch HP Notebook over a small white MacBook?!

Not that you believed it before, right?

Thanks to Fanboy for the find.

 

[beg_ne]

You have to especially love the PR coming out of Microsoft about this:

The Digits blog reports that:

According to Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows consumer product marketing at Microsoft, the agency told recruits it was a market research firm and didn't mention it was working with Microsoft. The recruits were told they could keep whatever money they didn’t spend on a PC so they had incentives to look for good values.

The blog goes on to say:

Brooks says of the roughly dozen computer shoppers its agency recruited, not a single one ended up spending their money on a Mac. Brooks says he "swears on a stack of Bibles" that the agency didn't in any way steer the shoppers towards a particular brand of computer or operating system. "Value is on the top of everybody's mind these days with the economic situation we’re in," he says.

 

[jbernie]

I liked it how with vista they disable the task manager with the alt-ctrl-del and instead bring up another screen from where you can choose task manager. Seeing as one most of the time has to use the task manager to end processes that are not responding, they should have put it right on the start icon..

Try CTRL+SHIFT+ESC, works quite nicely actually, can even do it one handed without trying to rearrange your fingers in some wierd order.

My wife is very much an average user, Word for her resume, Outlook for email, iTunes for the iPod, Internet Explorer for web browsing (or is it really shopping? hmmm), she might very rarely want to watch a DVD on it.

No need to spend lots of money on doing literally the basics. Sure she could get something from Apple, but other than being able to say "I use a Mac" there is no significant difference in the experience.

As to all the BS that is flying around about Vista, my god the sewers are going to be overflowing soon. Vista SP2 is very stable, you can get virus scanners for free should you be the type who likes to surf the sort of websites that put your computer at risk or open emails with attachments from people you don't know with subjects like happy birthday when it is no where near your birthday and such stuff.

If you like Apple's products and only want to buy their products I couldn't care less, go for it & enjoy it, just don't try to justify your purchase by suggesting that the products available from the competition are just way too inferior or problematic for you or for anyone else.

 

[Goona]

Dell did what they needed to do to fix their unknown computer brand in 1996, 3 years later they reached #1. How many years has it been taking for Apple to get out of the single digits in marketshare?

Which is why Dell keeps laying off employees and losing money every quarter, losing profits while Apple keeps adding to their cash now at almost 30 billion dollars and making record profits.

Office is whole $20 more expensive and can be used in a professional environment unlike iWork (the student teacher version, which has the same features as iWork). How is that ridiculous?

Dude please show me where you can get Office for 99 dollars and someone who is spending 700 dollars on a laptop is going to be worried about using it in a professional environment.

 

[NeverhadaPC]

What's missing

While the commercial is a well-struck jab at Apple for their higher prices in a tough economic time, I think something have been left out by MS and some of you guys:

1. How come none of you have compared the customer service of Apple to any PC provider? Consumer Report clearly state Apple is far superior to any other in customer satisfaction.

2. What is the lifetime of avg. Mac vs. PC (in both break-down rates/reliability and usability). I am doing all my work - MATLAB, Music, Games on my 2003 PowerBook G4 1.25 GHz 1 GB RAM... and it runs great with OS X Tiger.

I am looking forward using my student status and the summer sales to upgrade to a brand new MBP in July/august/september and Apple is the only choice for me.

PC users can go an buy what they need... I just hope they know what they will get.

 

[LanPhantom]

Don't hold your breath on Win7

Because I feel like stirring the pot.

Windows 95 wasn't as good as Win 98. Everyone hated Windows ME/2000 because it had very similar issues as Vista. Then XP came out and everyone is in love again. Vista sucks and the predecessor is Windows 7 which, although an even more blatant copy of OS X, reviewers are liking this even better. Is Microsoft's plan to make a crap OS that forces upgrades and new equipment only to release a better one a few years later that 1) doesn't suck as bad as the last one so it gets better reviews and therefore customers like it better and 2) it uses that forced upgrade in equipment run better with the new OS over the previous and therefore makes owners even happier?

i.e. - Windows 7 will be a success for Microsoft if it's reviewed as well after release as it has been with current beta testing.

Just a pattern I see that I'm not sure others see.

I agree that XP is a pretty good OS, however we've come to accept it since it's almost 8 years old. Vista is crap and Windows 7 is just Vista RC2. I have heard the same reviews you are hearing however I've also heard that Win7 is basically the same as Vista only a bit more polished.

Like I said in an earlier post, M$ MUST hit a home run or they will loose more Market Share. Maybe this will be a good thing and force Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer and such out of business and M$ will buy them up and start making their OWN PC's like Apple so they can compete on the same playing field. If they did that I think you would see a much more stable M$ OS and applications.

DOWN WITH DELL, HP, GATEWAY, ACER and all the others...!!!!!

LanPhantom

 

[erio]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

Of course. They're going to choose Apple's top of the line. The sad thing is, loads of people will fall for these ads even though comparing the 17" MacBook Pro to the 17" PC in this ad is like apples and oranges.

In what way? Apart from price, the machines are pretty similar.

Both have dual core processors, both have 4GB RAM, both have a 17" screen, both have a 320GB hard drive, both have a DVD-RW drive, both have built in webcams, both have a one year warranty.

The only area where the MacBook Pro will likely outperform the HP is in battery life, but then, I don't want to be one to fall for Apple's marketing garbage on that. I'm promised 5 hours on my MacBook, I get closer to 2 and a half.

Dude, sell your Mac and get a PC!

 

[cwwilson]

In what way? Apart from price, the machines are pretty similar.

Both have dual core processors, both have 4GB RAM, both have a 17" screen, both have a 320GB hard drive, both have a DVD-RW drive, both have built in webcams, both have a one year warranty.

The only area where the MacBook Pro will likely outperform the HP is in battery life, but then, I don't want to be one to fall for Apple's marketing garbage on that. I'm promised 5 hours on my MacBook, I get closer to 2 and a half.

But in all reality the MBP triple owns that junk heap MS is advertising. It's just a shame it costs closer to $3,000 while the Windows laptop she got was like $800.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Do people think that Apple stores are free? When you buy a Mac you get the stores as a resource too. What other computer manufacturer allows it customers to have such easy access to tech support?

You mean, what other company refuses to let you mail in your laptop because you are within an hour's drive of an Apple store?

I don't think this is one of MS's better ads. It's got too much background noise in it, just like XP's balloon notifications.

 

[mflender]

Conflicker

Shouldn't Microsoft be out solving conflicker which is set to receive commands April 1st?

 

[LanPhantom]

Did She Even Have Too...?

Kind of funny, makes you wonder if the director thought she would change her mind and go with the Mac


"Lauren" (if that is her real name) didn't really go into the Apple store...or Crispin Porter had a bunch of extras walking around during the filming.

How do we know? Notice at 0:13 when she walks into the store, there is a balding guy with jacket and striped shirt and camera walking by. He is still walking by when she leaves the store filmed on the other camera. That gave her less than a second in the store. She said she walked in and looked around but how could this be?.

We also know she is an actress so the rest isn't a stretch. What LA actress wants a hulking, cheap 17 inch HP Notebook over a small white MacBook?!

Not that you believed it before, right?

Thanks to Fanboy for the find.

Did she even HAVE to go into the store? One big difference here is you can go to Apple.com and KNOW all the prices ahead of time and KNOW exactly what you are getting into before walking into the store. UNLIKE BestBuy, CompUSA or the like where you bring your checkbook and wait to see the damage for a PC you haven't even researched. Since there is soooooo many different variables in the PC Market it's impossible to do your research ahead of time.

LanPhantom

 

[Funplex]

She was kind of annoying, but they make a decent point. Mac prices are a lot higher.

 

[roski11]

You have to especially love the PR coming out of Microsoft about this:

****, if MS gave me a grand and told me to find a cheap laptop I would be all over that. Theres a guy on Crenshaw and Imperial that sells laptops for 300 bucks.

 

[hypmatize]

This is why i buy mac

WARNING STRONG LANGUAGE


http://www.break.com/index/angry-guy-kills-his-own-computer.html

( I do like pc's but i thought this was funny)

 

[AidenShaw]

Everyone hated Windows ME/2000 because it had very similar issues as Vista.

This is a confused statement.

Windows ME and Windows 2000 are two completely different operating systems. "ME" was a poorly received follow-on to Windows 95. "Windows 2000" was completely different, and was the follow-on to the "Windows NT 4" line of business-focussed operating systems.

And what issues "similar to Vista" did these two completely different OS's share?

Vista sucks and the predecessor is Windows 7...

The current Vista hardly sucks, although it is fashionable for people to say that. The fact that far more people are using Vista than OSX doesn't seem to come up, though.

The predecessor to Vista is Windows 2003, the successor to Vista is Windows 7.

 

[beg_ne]

****, if MS gave me a grand and told me to find a cheap laptop I would be all over that. Theres a guy on Crenshaw and Imperial that sells laptops for 300 bucks.

The point is MS is saying these are all real people and real shopping experiences.

Their first commercial is of an actress (ie: not a REAL person) going on a fake shopping trip, where she fake goes into an Apple store(she went to the entrance and turned around and came back out without going into the Apple store) and then talks **** about Apple.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

Watching this thread is hilarious. Are the apple fanboys so worried that the competition has put out an ad that attacks apple? Steve and his ad campaign have been taking cheap shots at MS for the past several years, but now that MS takes a stand and throws the cost argument in their faces the entire fanboy community is up in arms trying to defend their purchase, which really only proves how desperate some fanboys are to prove that their mac is worth it.
Do yourselves a favor and think about what you are doing before you post here. If you have to try so hard to rationalize spending so much on a computer you are doing exactly what MS wants you to.

 

[atropos]

The ads is cheating isn't it? even the display spec is way lower than MBP;

The CPU is way slower than than MBP 17" and the memory is not DDR3, the display card is integrate graphic card with share memory, the wireless card isn't even a 802.11n card; the 17" display is ridiculous;

why they aren't using "normal" way to compare it cheater~~!!

If that lady is a "real buyer" I just wishing her luck, my gf's hp laptop was broken with in 6 months, and she switch to mac after that.

 

[Nodnarb]

She says, "I'm a PC, and I got just what I wanted."

Then why did she walk into an Apple Store FIRST?!

 

[Lancetx]

It is hilarious indeed. Hilarious that stories like this always bring the MS fanboys out in droves....to a Mac centric site no less. How desperate must you fanboys be to have to try to rationalize your devotion to Windows in such a pathetic way. So do yourselves a favor and think about what you are doing before you post here.