Microsoft ad: 'I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person'
Summary: Microsoft has new consumer PC ads out, set to begin airing on March 26 during March Madness basketball. I just checked out a preview of one of the spots over on www.windows.com. The 60-second ad is all about "Lauren," who wants to buy a new, 17-inch-screen laptop for under $1,000.
Microsoft has new consumer PC ads out, set to begin airing on March 26 during March Madness basketball.
I just checked out a preview of one of the spots over on www.windows.com. The 60-second ad is all about "Lauren," who wants to buy a new, 17-inch-screen laptop for under $1,000.
Lauren isn't a die-hard Windows fan, who, like me, crosses to the other side of the street so as not to get too close to an Apple store (hoping to avoid roving bands of rabid Mac fanboys/girls and their ilk). Lauren checks out the forbidden fruit. But she can only find one, measly 13-inch Macbook in her price range and joking tells the camera, "I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person."
(The sarcasm is amusing, but I already forsee a new "I'm a Mac" commercial spoofs on this one. And unlike many Microsoft marketing managers, I don't cotton to the idea that any time you can get someone talking about your products or ads, even if it is negatively, is still good news.)
As part of the latest wave of Windows ads (other phases of which have included the perplexing Seinfeld series, the Mojave Experiment, "I'm a PC" and "The Rookies"), the new "Laptop Hunters" series of ads focuses on customer profiles. What kind of Windows PC should you get if you're a gamer? (A $1,900 Asus G50 G50VT-A2) A designer? (A $1,000 Lenovo IdeaPad Y530) A parent? (A $630 Toshiba Satellite A305) A socialite? (A $1,500 Lenovo IdeaPad Y730).
(Where's "A recession-plagued writer" with a link to a $500 netbook? Or even the pricier Vivienne Tam edition?)
Update: Brad Brooks, Corporate Vice President of Windows Consumer Marketing, characterized the new campaign as highlighting Microsoft's heritage as a low-cost player. "It's about making technology affordable and focusing on value and what it means," Brooks said. Microsoft's contention is "we provide better value at any price point."
I'm not sure I fit in any of the Laptop Hunter profiles. But I'm definitely in the market for a new PC. But I'm holding out for that shiny WIndows 7 one I bet I'll get to buy later this year...
What do you think of the Laptop Hunters ads? Better or worse than what the Softies have tried so far as part of their $300 million "Life Without Walls campaign?
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Talkback
olePigeon would HATE this computer!!
Is the hard drive too small? Nope.
Is it too expensive? Nope.
So what is wrong with the laptop she bought? It comes in a brown box.
http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-13615-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=62493&messageID=1152605
[i]it turns out that it ships in a brown box[/i]
Haha! If choosing your computer based on the color of the box it comes in is what makes you a "cool" Mac owner, I'm definitely not cool enough to own a Mac!!! Nor do I want to be. :)
Oh Yeah!!
Is there a grown-up version of this thread?
from . . .
A hundred years from now...
and hardware that he's never tried. He still doesn't get it. It's not
about the packaging, it's about the entire package. The OS. The well
designed and well built computers. It's about the usability of the
operating system, and of iLife. It's not about the box, it's about getting
something that works right out of the box. It's about the computer
that you pull FROM the box plug it in, and in less than a minute it is
completely booted up and you are already using it with no problems.
You can keep bashing all you want and you can say "I'm definitely not
cool enough to own a Mac!! Nor do I want to be." That's fine. We're
getting along fine without someone that doesn't want an exceptional
computing experience.
BTW, your moniker is wrong. You are a zealot, but on the Windows
side. I've never seen anyone show as much frothing at the mouth for
their computer platform - not even the most fervent Mac user.
She's been bashing Apple for 5 years
LOL....
side. I've never seen anyone show as much frothing at the mouth for
their computer platform"
Sounds to me like your post was a frothing at the mouth for Apple. You are the same way just for Apple, so don't act like you can't froth as much as the next person. Its so funny how windows always has so many issues to some people, but if you got down to it, you would find that in most cases these users aren't using good computing practices and have a special thing for free internet porn. As we have seen lately Apple would not be immune to most of the same things, and Apple's patch machine has been in high gear lately. I can say my users can't change or muck up their systems and they work all day every day and I get about 1 desktop service call a month for 200 desktops and its always hardware or a printer issue. Speaks volumes to me, but to you I guess I am just really lucky. Use what works for you, but to call Windows junk is absolute insanity on your part.
They're both junk
The only decent solution is Linux, and once software developers see this we will all be better off.
Linux + support from software developers > Apples or PC's
Correction....
Vista just a bit of a hog?
That's a bit of an understatement. You might as well say that the sun is just possibly perhaps useful for human life on Earth.
Or...
I must be that good then!
Just lucky rather than good...
require you to run as Administrator, not as a Standard User. No,
right-clicking and Run As Administrator doesn't work. Ran into this
problem with both Dragon Naturally Speaking and Pinnacle Studio.
Dragon will not create a user profile for a non-administrator account
even when using the Run As command; it has to create a profile for
the speech-to-text. Pinnacle Studio won't load the tutorial movies or
read the scratch disk when run in Standard user, even if you use the
Run As command.
This is no fault of Microsoft, mind you. The problem is that
developers just aren't going to change their bad programming habits.
They'll continue assuming the user is administrator.
Fair enough
[i]They'll continue assuming the user is administrator.[/i]
I think Vista is slowly fixing this assumption.
@NZ
I think you're right. Our ERP vendor used to code their client software assuming Admin rights. Won't run without them. They changed that when they wrote the client to run on Vista.
Vista is forcing developers to code better
NonZealot is right about the best way to deal with those few "bad" applications. Just give the user elevated rights to that specific application directory. I never set a system up to run with Admin rights. I haven't since XP came out about a decade ago. That's probably why I have never had malware infections or other corruption problems with XP or Vista on any of my systems. That's probably also why I can't grasp the troubles some folks claim to have had with those OSes. They've both been bulletproof for me. And after SP1, Vista's resource usage dropped so far that it's virtually identical to XP now.
I may not like Microsoft at all, but I do like their OS.
How often do you re-install?
I don't know if OSX has the problem, but I don't see that happening in Ubuntu.
OSs don't last that long on my desktop
However, my wife's XP desktop has lasted at least 2 years without a reinstall and is running just fine. She runs with a restricted rights user account.
I can also say that I've had a similar experience with openSUSE on my media PC when it was running MythTV. My openSUSE server has run for years with barely any reboots, certainly no reinstalls!
I've installed the OS once on each of my systems
The usual cause of slowdown and even odd error messages in Windows comes from installing and uninstalling (or upgrading) a lot of different programs over time. Thanks to poor programmers, each program leaves behind various garbage in the registry that shouldn't be there. Even updating to a newer version leaves garbage in the registry. Over time, the vast bulk of these orphaned broken links will encumber even a fast computer. This is called "registry rot."
When I uninstall or update something, I run a registry cleaner like CCleaner (free program). It removes all the crap left behind by the uninstaller. So, my system doesn't "slow down" over time. (Always use the latest version of CCleaner(.com) and if you use it, donate to the developer!)
Doing all of this works. I have a couple of old XP Pro systems that have been running on the same original OS install for 8+ years (even original hard drive on one of them). One of my laptops has the original install of XP Pro, after over 5 years. They all run as well as they did when they were new.
When I want to try a new OS, I always put it on a brand new hard drive and do a full low-level format before installing. So, I guess that's my last suggestion. Sometimes factory pre-formatting or quick formats are just flaky.
No, they're all junk.
Ah, perhaps it is Windows afterall.
EDIT: And I use Windows with unshakeable faith.
<b>Duuuude!</b> Stop bashing...
Or did you get your moniker wrong, and it should be daWoman35? (I'm just guessing about the age thing, though;-)
Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Cry, and you get your keyboard too wet to watch free internet porn.
;-)