Trying to shine up Windows Vista
Microsoft is trying to do something about Vista’s somewhat tarnished reputation with a new advertising campaign. Personally, I would rather that Steve Ballmer put the $400 $300 million that is supposedly being spent on this campaign into making Windows better. But Ballmer began his career in advertising so we are getting TV commercials with the odd combination of comedian Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. Microsoft fan boys are cheering this as showing that Microsoft is fighting back against Apple’s Steve Jobs and other nefarious types. But in the circles where I travel, this ad campaign is wasted money. Improve the product and I will be interested. Try to convince me with advertising tricks that an inferior product is really something else and I might buy a Mac instead.
To be fair, I have to mention that Microsoft says it has already greatly improved Vista since the initial release and that SP1 fixed many problems. My own experience is that SP1 helped a little but Vista is still a bloated system. For some more discussion of Microsoft’s efforts to sell Vista, see this article at the New York Times. Steve Lohr writes:
By now, Microsoft insists that most of the frustrating technical problems with Vista, which was introduced in January 2007 after repeated delays, have been resolved — and many industry executives and analysts agree.
Yet Vista’s image problems have opened the door to alternatives to Windows as never before. Windows still commands more than 90 percent of the market for personal computer operating systems. But Apple’s Macintosh operating software — which runs only on Apple machines — is gaining ground, especially in the United States.
Microsoft’s stumbles have also given momentum to the shift of software away from the PC and onto the Web. Web-based programs for e-mail, spreadsheets and other tasks can be run in a browser, undermining the value of the underlying operating system. Indeed, Google’s entry into the browser market this week is an implicit declaration that the browser is increasingly supplanting the PC operating system as a strategic computing gateway.
Update: Microsoft seems to be canceling the Jerry Seinfeld TV spots.
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