Microsoft’s “You find it, you keep it” campaign, which directly attacks Apple, has seen another instalment. The first one, with Lauren criticising Apple for its pricing policy and lack of choice, was met with mixed reviews, and I’m sure the second one will not be received any differently. Giampaolo disses Apple for a lack of power and being all about aesthetics.
Here’s the ad, which follows the same basic premise as the previous one:
He wants a laptop with power, portability, and lots of battery life, for under 1500 USD. He checks a number of laptops, but of course also passes by a MacBook. “So sexy,” he states. He continues, however: “Macs to me are about aesthetics more than they are the computing power. I don’t want to pay for the brand; I want to pay for the computer.” In the end, he ends up buying a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion HDX, for USD 1099.
The more I see these ads, the more I realise they are not about drawing Mac users towards the Windows side – they are about keeping Windows users on the Windows side. You won’t sway Mac users by saying that Macs are all about looks, because a lot of Mac users actually care about that.
For the rest, the ad focusses on the things that Apple can’t offer its customers: low prices and lots of choice. In that respect, the ads could be quite effective. Show off your own strong points, and if those strong points happen to be the weak points of your main competitor – two birds, one stone.
The first rule of advertising: When you are number 1, never mention your closest competitor. All you’re doing is giving them free advertising.
I honestly don’t believe Microsoft is winning anything with these commercials. Same goes for the ones with Jerry Seinfeld, but at least those were funny, although pointless.
I also don’t think that making people look like George Costanza (in the wise words of Elaine Benes, “you are very ‘careful’ with money”, ie calling someone cheap) is a good move.
🙂
Edited 2009-04-05 10:41 UTC
Agree completely. Even if a very small percentage of Windows users see the ad and think, hey I like that computer, I should try it, that would mean considerable sales for Apple.
… except for that this is in response to apple doing the exact same thing for the last 3 years in their very successful “Get a Mac” campaign.
Like Thom said, these ads aren’t about stealing mac users, they are about keeping windows users. You don’t have to say your the best, all you have to say you are a viable option.
Except Apple isn’t number 1 (by far). For the little guy it’s always much more efficient to diss the big guy. Everyone already knows and uses Windows, you’ve got nothing to lose.
For the big guy to even mention the little guy is indeed just drawing more attention to it. Believe it or not, outside the techie bubble are still a lot of people today who believe macs are dead and dissappeared in the 90’s. That ads shows then they are still a choice and that they look better than the other devices.
Maybe in europe, not in north america. between ipods, iphones, apple stores, product placement in tv and movies, and those ads on tv, Apple is an incredibly hip brand at the moment. If you walk into a starbucks in any major city here, you will likely see at least a few apple logos, and if you walk into any major computer store (especially the ones made for people who don’t know what they are doing), you are going to see a fairly prominent apple section.
Believe it or not, in America #2 is still behind #1.
Hipness does not affect the laws of mathematics and the ordering of integer numbers.
In in Australia Starbucks has been a dismal failure – we hate the watery swill they call coffee. Apple is considered a brand for teenagers (Ipods) and wankers (Iphone). Apple laptops are an overpriced rarity.
Agreed. And creating a perception that they’re the 500lb gorilla going after the little guy is also likely to backfire for Microsoft.
And personally, these ads also invalidate one of the few positive things I could say about Microsoft: “their ads may be dull-as-dishwater, but at least they’re mature enough not to engage in the same sort of infantile triumphalism that you see in Apple’s advertising.” Not anymore, though.
First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
And squash you like a bug.
Edited 2009-04-05 15:27 UTC
You think apple is Microsoft closest competitor? It is not, they are not worried about apple a bit, they just try to wipe the floor with apple that is all. Steve Ballmer has said it alright, he is more worried by Linux than apple.
The day Microsoft mention Linux in one of their adds is the day Ubuntu will have more than a million downloads, MS does not want that. Apple they can mention, cause apple fills a niche not everybody likes apple, I do like it, but it doesn’t fit my needs. So there you go.
Consider what Matt Rossof said,an analyst with independent research firm directions on Microsoft:
“Macintosh computers are a threat in precisely one market — upscale consumer PCs, a small part of the overall PC market,”
“Linux is a bigger threat because it competes in more areas such as server OSs, embedded systems and increasingly on client PCs with the rise of low-cost netbooks,”
Just for people to think about.
I don’t think MS want really low prices for computers ( less than 200.) because at that point the license costs are really a major part of the whole cost.
And I do like the Mac as a Windows competitor, because it forces people to think cross platform. I just don’t like all the preaching Mac users, they are so smug and even worse than privacy/freedom geeks like me
Too bad they don’t realise people like me purchase Mac’s because we like Mac OS X – nothing to do with how it looks.
There is a reason why I don’t purchase a PC, its because I can’t stand using Windows; fix Windows then you might win a customer – its a pretty easy solution. By putting more and more of these ads on it tells me that you would rather spend millions on advertisement that fixing up the deficiencies in your operating system.
Apple advertises to show the strength of their computers because the are barely known by most people. Everyone already knows about Microsoft, Windows and PC’s – unless you’ve got something new to tell me about your products, your marketing is pointless and quite frankly if I was a shareholder I’d wanting to see a report to actually prove the money was well spent by showing that the marketing caused an increase in sales (rather than the usual correlation being marked off as causation).
Give me an operating system based on FreeBSD core with a nice GUI along the lines of AmigaOS GUI and I’d be a happy lad; throw ontop drag and drop software installations, a webkit based web browser and a realisation that I don’t need to be told every five seconds via ‘bubbles’ that I’ve done something – and I’d be a happy lad. I’m not aksing for much – just an operating system that doesn’t suck. Is that really too much to ask from a company who has over $50billion the bank? I think not.
Edited 2009-04-05 10:51 UTC
Sorry, but that logic is flawed.
In essence, what you’re saying is it’s OK for Apple to advertise but not MS because you happen to like OS X.
The reality is MS can afford to both fix their OS (as they seem to be making efforts towards in Win7) AND advertise.
They actually do have that much money and resources.
Edited 2009-04-05 10:55 UTC
I find it interesting that they mention everything but Windows. It seems that Microsoft lives in a land where there is hardware and the operating system running ontop has absolutely no impact on the over all experience for the end user. I’d love to know what land this is because it seems like the perfect land where the only thing that matters in all these commercials are hardware specifications and price.
Sorry to ‘rain on your parade’ but I have longer list of considerations than whether it not it has massive souped up specifications for under $1500 or whether it has a big ass (and completely unportable) 17inch screen, 1 1/2 hour battery life all for under $1000.
Mac OS X is what makes a Mac enjoyable to use; again, want to win a customer like me over, produce a better operating system than Windows – and that involves getting rid of NT; 1980s called and they want their drive letters, their MICROS~1, CMD.EXE and so on back. Time to get with the programme; even Amiga wasn’t that pathetic when it came to commandline (anyone remember AMIGAShell? Ah, good times, good times).
Of course they can do both – but considering that they’ve done nothing in the way of fixing their operating system yet; I’m assuming they’re a single tasking organisation that can only do one thing really good at anyone time.
Edited 2009-04-05 12:31 UTC
You do realise you’re precious OS X is built on technology far older than the NT kernel?
I’m actually quite bemused by the degree of your hypocrisy in that post.
re Micros~1 – that’s already been long since fixed. NTFS supports long files names. But I’m sure you knew that already but chose to ignore it for the sake of looking smug.
Also, you whinge about Windows’s lack of command line yet that’s precisely the same argument you and other smug OS X users bang on about Linux’s woes – re the need to sometimes duck into the command line.
Oh, and finally. There’s nothing wrong with the NT kernel. It’s the userland that’s sh*t.
Case in point: Windows 2000. Solid as a rock.
Of course they can do both – but considering that they’ve done nothing in the way of fixing their operating system yet; I’m assuming they’re a single tasking organisation that can only do one thing really good at anyone time. [/q]
I take it you’ve completely ignored all the discussions on Win7 as well as my post re Win7 which you even quoted?
I’m not going to turn around and say Win7 is perfect and there’s little to no chance that Win7 will pull me away from Linux or Solaris. But to say that MS isn’t at least trying to correct their past mistakes is pure BS.
Using your same logic: you do realize that the original NT kernel was for all intents and purposes a microkernel version of the VMS kernel technologies… which vastly predate BSD and Mach.
I’m fully aware of the VMS kernel however Unix still predates it by a couple of years (Unix was born late 60s and VMS was early 70s).
However this is a moot point as NT’s kernel was original source where as OS X’s wasn’t.
So, inspiration or not, OS X’s kernel does predate NT’s.
Edited 2009-04-06 12:38 UTC
What deficiencies? Usually people on the internet just writing this FUD without proving or giving points.
Not everybody thinks that the BSD core is the ultimate solution when it comes to operating systems. Windows NT core is as good as anything else. In fact it would be stupid to have only unix-like systems in the world.
Drag and drop software installation?
Sorry but it’s not a solution. Show me one Apple software which comes without an installer… Not even Apple thinks that drag and drop is not lame. In my opinion it’s much more complicated to open a disk image then open Applications and drag the icon there then create a shortcut on the dock.
As for the bubbles: i don’t know what you’re talking about, i don’t see any bubbles. Maybe every 5 days in average but not every 5 seconds… Please be more precise
>In fact it would be stupid to have only unix-like systems in the world.
Not stupid, but boring only with Unix-like. No viruses, no BSOD, no install one crappy driver and destroy all system and other easy pyzy fun.
>Not everybody thinks that the BSD core is the ultimate solution when it comes to operating systems. Windows NT core is as good as anything else. In fact it would be stupid to have only unix-like systems in the world.
No its not actually. Here is the thing, and I was with NT from the beginning. The original premise of NT was superb. In fact it was a REAL cutting edge kernel that could hold its own. But then around NT 3.51 they bastardized the kernel when they moved GDI into kernel space. At that point NT became an overbloated operating system.
Microsoft does have the ability to make NT go back to its roots, but they don’t want to for fear of what may happen.
So why did they leave their roots? Performance. Though I doubt today with how graphic processors work it would be a problem.
>Drag and drop software installation?
Sorry but it’s not a solution.
Sorry but that is a solution. I hate Windows installers because users get it wrong all the time. What happens is that you give them a link to download and install.
They uninstall all right, but then they install the same old installer. Yes you can change the name or what have you, but they get it wrong quite often. It sounds stupid, but that is reality. So I will be providing support for an old version of the software and wonder what is going on.
Then on top of that the problem is that the files on a windows system are scattered all over the place. When my clients move from one machine to another they expect all of their settings to magically move with them from the installer.
My solution these days is to use subversion, and fixed location installations. It works like a charm! User’s always have working systems, etc… They can mirror their application save it to the version control system and move back to old systems.
BTW I write Excel based trading systems that use my platform called HippoTrader.
I make my money with Excel and Windows, but Vista and the later editions of Windows are crap!
It’s actually a little bit different. The decision to move something like GDI into the kernel might be debatable, but the fact that you actually CAN do it is a testament to the flexibility and clean design of the NT kernel and its tools.
NT is not “bloated”. NT is perfectly fine the way it is, and is probably a lot more advanced than what the competition has to offer (on the lower levels, that is). The userland is what sometimes makes Windows so dreadful, but with Windows 7 its seems like they’re finally addressing that properly.
People claiming that Microsoft needs to use another kernel (like a BSD one) have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. Yes let’s replace one of the world’s most stable, advanced kernels+tools for something as archaic in design as UNIX.
Edited 2009-04-05 12:07 UTC
uh, they moved it back out into userland for Vista, oh and they moved the audio into userspace as well, so I guess I don’t have to read any farther.
Ah, no they didn’t. There are still parts of the audio stack in the kernel, along with the graphics layer as well.
The good side that Microsoft now has a user space driver API, too bad Microsoft doesn’t extensively use it; case in point was my parents desktop which has a Belkin USB based wireless; whilst it was transferring I opened up the device manager, double clicked on the the device and the whole thing BSOD’ed on me. Something that could have been avoided had they been user space drivers – specifically had they forced vendors to write user space drivers.
I’m pretty sure that they moved all the graphics back into userspace, all the stuff I have read leads me to that conclusion. What info do you have to back up your claims? I would be interested in reading it, I took a quick google, but haven’t turned up to much as yet.
As I talks with Microsoft people once per day or other day, I think they don’t.
they don’t what? they haven’t moved all the graphics layer to userspace, or they don’t have any graphics in userspace, or maybe they don’t lead me to that conclusion?
‘m not sure what your point is
It’s a direct response to your statement so don’t pretend to be a context-free parser.
Your reply was so context free that I didn’t get what your point was, so I asked. Have they moved the graphics entirely from the kernel, or not? You didn’t answer at all.
They haven’t. If it was the tense bother you, maybe this is the exact answer you need. But it is still they (have) not.
Here is a hint for all those who use “userland” …. chances are that the term does not mean what some of you think it means.
Case in point, if you think drivers belong to “userland” you are part of the above mentioned group.
Edited 2009-04-05 19:33 UTC
The GUI – every part of it. Replace it. Compare how easy to use and pleasant Mac OS X is compared to Windows. I’m not saying copy it; I’m saying – well yes, I am saying copy it by buying out AmigaOS and plonking that UI on top.
Considering that Windows NT is still saddled with 20 years worth of legacy such as drive letters, dll’s littered left right and centre, the registry and numerous other stupid ideas – It would be a big improvement not to have the NT core or anything relating to NT.
Obviously you don’t attach devices or use your computer much.
Who cares what Apple does; all the installers use a common installation routine (except for Adobe – but they’d screw up anything on any platform) anyway; compare that to the mess in the Windows world – dlls sprayed left right and centre, over righting files in the windows directory, crap being left in the registry etc. Its a friggin joke.
Bundles are indeed the superior solution. Too bad Apple implemented it very, very badly.
1) Settings files are created outside of the bundle, and they are not linked to one another. As such, if you delete a bundle, it leaves a trail of files all over the place. You need 3rd party tools like App Zapper to really remove an application. Bad.
2) Stupid nonsense with .dmg files. Just put the bundle online. We are living in the broadband age, putting stuff in .dmg files makes no sense whatsoever. Just adds annoying steps that serve no purpose.
3) Apple itself still uses installers (without an uninstall option!) and packages (without an uninstall option!) that totally disregard the bundle premise, littering the entire system with files all over the place.
4) No central updating mechanism.
Bundles = good, Apple’s implementaton = bad.
Edited 2009-04-05 12:46 UTC
It should be created outside the bundle – in the user directory; where else should it be put? The only thing what they should do is have some way of uninstalling it by right clicking on it, click on ‘remove completely’ and it deletes not only the application but all the configuration files it created.
I see nothing wrong with dmg; no more stupid than zip’ing or raring or any other version of compression.
Agreed; lord knows what their logic is – but its still a damn site better of Windows where you can’t uninstall something because of this stupid idea of ‘locking’ files. Who ever designed Windows NT so that in use files are locked needs to be burnt at the stake.
Or atleast some way to extend the current Apple updater so that third party vendors can add their repositories; lord knows it would be an upgrade from Adobes updaters which are horrendous pieces of crap.
True, but its about weighing up the operating systems and deciding which one sucks the least.
Edited 2009-04-05 12:53 UTC
All over the place – you mean like in that user’s Library folder? I see how that could be hard for some people to grasp :S – and the alternative is to create multiple user’s preference files inside the bundle? Well there’s a security nightmare. Next…
Haha – this just shows your level of ignorance Thom. Do you actually know what an installer package is? Yes Thom, its a BUNDLE, and do you know what a bundle actually is Thom? Its a FOLDER with a special structure. So Thom, how many web servers out there are going to understand this structure and serve it properly? *rolls eyes* I suppose they could ZIP them up and we could all get those lovely Windowsesque ZIP files that unzip themselves and leave the contents in temporary storage even after the installation and require apps like CCleaner to remove. Or we could have a Disk iMaGem (DMG) file that attaches, gets used, unattaches and we can either archive or delete. Next…
Yes they do use installers because Drag and Drop installations in a multi-user environment will always encounter permissions problems if the installing user isn’t a privileged user. They are a good idea but in many cases not practical, and they were originally developed prior to OSX when there were no real user privileges to worry about. However, uninstalling = drag this icon to the trash and empty the trash. What’s that, it doesn’t get rid of the user’s preference and registry entries? You mean the same ones the Windows uninstaller leaves “littering the entire system”? At least I don’t have thousands of dll’s “littering the entire system” folder, even after an “Uninstall”. Next…
You mean like Windows update? Let me just check how many third party apps that one updates on my Windows box here – 1 sec … oh, geez I’m shocked, that would be NONE – hmmm – must have missed something in the meaning of that one then…
Not perfect yes, bad no. Having NO bundle implementation is bad…
No, the alternative is to have the system link the settings files to the bundle, so that when you remove the bundle, the trail of files is deleted as well.
Ah, patronising, because you assume I didn’t know how bundles work (despite the fact that I’ve written more articles on bundles than you have made comments on OSNews).
But it’s not really a problem. Windows systems are easily fooled (just change the extension), and I’m sure other UNIX systems wouldn’t pose a problem either.
And the rest of your comment I’m going to ignore, because you’re just blabbering on about Windows, because you make the small-minded, Apple zealotesque assumption that just because I say something bad about Apple, I MUST love everything about Windows, despite my numerous articles on the suckage of Windows application management.
Get a life, zealot.
The Alternative is to use AppZapper like most Mac users do, Zap, and it’s all gone.
Not to mention OS X doesn’t slow down with some left over files, unlike Windows and it’s infamous Registry.
Would you like a cookie?
Problem with opinions, they’re like bums, we all have one, it’s just some of them stink.
That’s rich. Coming from the person that slams OS X at every turn he can.
Unlike the rest of us, who actually use every OS on a daily basis, whether it’s Linux, Unix, OS X or Windows, they all have their strengths, but you’re not interested in their strengths are you? Just their weaknesses, regardless to how small the problem is, or even if it’s just a dislike, doesn’t matter much to you does it?
You just keep sitting there posting how OS X is the worst OS out there, and probably continue to get kickbacks from MS for each slam you do
As for the actual MS ads, they’re not even pitting them against OS X and Windows, they’re pitting it against OS X and Hardware Vendors, it’s got nothing to do with Microsoft in the slightest. It’s just terrible byproduct that Vista comes included. If they bought a Dell with Linux, I’m sure they could do an even better price without the MS crap on it.
Nice job MS, your ads suck.
Ah, so I should have to pay for an uninstaller, something that should be part of any modern os? Sorry, but that’s ridiculous.
No, patronising because your comment TELLS me you don’t know what bundles are or how they work. I could write a thousand articles on brain surgery too, and every one of them would be wrong. You don’t have to know about something to vomit all over the web about it, you just have to pretend you do…
ROFL I love it when you open your mouth to change feet. OK, so let me get this right, you’re going to put a bundle, which is a folder, on a web server and change its extension so that it then serves it as though it is a single file and downloaded as such by the system? OK, if you say so…
No the rest of my comment you will ignore because it totally challenges what you wrote and you have no argument back. You are so petty minded that you feel you have to use your platform here to post total crud that to the uninformed might sound like truth, and when you are challenged by someone you exhibit the typical response of a ten year old, you pack up your bat and ball and go cry.
I’m a zealot because I point out that you’re a moron. I’m fine with that…
Settings in bundles are fine for a single user system, but not a multiuser system. Even linking creates problems in multiuser systems. In a single user system it’s fine to ask the user if they want to remove the settings. In a multiuser system, you’re leaving it to the fiat of the administrator.
A few points here. A bundle is just a collection of files, and the only real way to distribute a collection of files is by packaging them up into a single file. Disk images, archival utilities, and compression utilities all accomplish that. As for creating a bundle which is a single file, Apple used to do that. (Remember resource forks? People hated them because it was quite easy to end up with a corrupted file.)
As for the bandwidth comment, suggesting that the compression part of disk images is unnecessary, you seem to be implying that everyone has a lot of bandwidth. There are plenty of people who don’t, and there is little they can do about it. (Ever live in a community that is only serviced by satellite?)
Agreed, the inability to remove the software (with ease) is a problem. Yet I have also found that scattering files around the file system is one of the main purposes of installers, because bundles cannot solve everything. Let’s pretend that you’re a major vendor who has created a library that is shared between multiple applications (e.g. Adobe, Apple, Microsoft). Or maybe you make software that involves multiple components (e.g. an application and a centralized management tool). Or maybe you are shipping specialized resources with your program (e.g. fonts for an equation editor). It is possible to tell users where to put everything, and vendors used to do that in the olden days with the classic Mac OS, but the simple fact of the matter is that most people don’t want to do that stuff manually.
Oh great. Another hook for malware authors.
“The GUI – every part of it. Replace it. Compare how easy to use and pleasant Mac OS X is compared to Windows.”
This is all a personal thing. Personally I find OS X to be non-intuitive and hard to use. I mean, why should I have to go into the Finder, which is a lower feature version of Explorer, and hunt for apps? If that is a pleasure to use, then it is all yours.
Well, I prefer that to the way Windows and various Linux desktops handle their menu system. It’s nice the menus are instantly available, I’ll give you that, but the whole concept of shortcuts to apps is, imho at least, outdated. What I like about OS X’s approach is, when I’m browsing my apps, I’m literally browsing my installed apps. Not the shortcuts the vendor wants me to see, not something that might be pointing to the wrong place. If I see that app file on OS X, then the app is there, right in front of me, and I like that.
Btw, if you want, just put your applications folder in the dock. Presto, instant access from anywhere in the os, no Finder to deal with. Best of both worlds, at least for me.
MacOS X == XFce with much higher memory requirements.
“Go”, “applications”
Much worse that start, program files, show all applications, etc. ?
How much usability testing did Amiga do on their OS? I’ve only used it in an emulator. It seems really old and antiquated, but maybe because it is. Microsoft has actually spent cash on usability testing to determine what works and what doesn’t.
Some of that legacy is to support old apps that use undocumented features that shouldn’t have been used.
Drive letters are a userspace thing, again, to support the long-standing use. Volumes can be mounted anywhere below C:\ in any directory.
DLLS’s don’t scatter everywhere anymore. The windows directory is write-protected, and apps that are developed properly put their dll’s in their own dir, unless they are shared across many apps, then there is a specific directory under c:\program files\ for that.
The registry is old, but wasn’t it deprecated with vista? Maybe not, but each user has his own app settings folder, and there is a seperate program settings folder available for registry-type use, but without using the registry.
If Microsoft did indeed “pay” for the usability of their OS, they should get a refund. What is so usable about an OS that has a trashcan on the desktop (which, like a real trashcan still contains whatever you put in it until you empty it), but then asks you: “Are you sure you wish to get rid of xxx?”. Gad how annoying! If I ever become brain-damaged, perhaps Windows is the OS for me, until then I would take the Amiga OS over any other in a heartbeat. There’s a reason the graphics interface of the Amiga OS was called “Intuition.”. With the Amiga OS, a n00b could sit down in front of an Amiga without a manual and figure out how to use almost any application that could be bought (GIMP and MSPaint could really learn a lot from Deluxe Paint for example).
Unfortunately, I have to settle for Linux, because it’s the least insulting to my intelligence (I’ve been programming in C for over 22 years), so Windows is meant for clueless Users IMNSHO.
Greetings to a fellow C programmer.
I’ve hardly ever seen the Amiga user interface, but I’ve encountered fiercely loyal users of it. If it’s as good as you say, perhaps you’d consider spending some time building an alternative user interface for GIMP demonstrating the ideas it uses. Who knows, it might catch on. That’s one of the virtues of Open Source, you can go your own way.
I’m going to be doing some things like that myself, not related to Amiga, but to alternative ways of packaging computing functionality and customizing user interfaces around it.
Mega *LOL*
Your comment is really funny. So Windows has only one problem: FUD on the internet. Of course Windows itself is perfect – its just the users that are a little bit limited!
*Bruhahahahaha*
(Go to O’Reilly’s website and search for books about ‘annoyances’. *Hm* – I wonder why the term ‘Windows’ appears so often in the search results ..)
Yeah, especially when the OS almost goes to its knees when you put in a CD with a few scratches and things like that ..
Sorry, the product speaks for itself and what it says is quite the opposite of your opinion ..
(Ever wondered why they never managed to bring their “all new and better” Vista to the netbook world or why the OS was inflexible enough to run decent under low resource conditions, while you find Linux kernels on almost every device and Apple ported OSX to the iPhone’s in less than half the time Microsoft needed to produce something lame like Vista?)
*Nah* Good modular system design is not done in Redmond. That’s way Windows server starts more and more to ape clean and simple *nix systems architecture.
Wouldn’t it be equally stupid to have only Windows-like systems?
And still Redmond is trying to reach exactly that with their “we don’t care for standards we didn’t bought ourselves” politics.
You should concentrate on what you would like to express with your words not trying to fight others. You can’t deny that it’s just plain FUD. There are no reasons, no descriptions just that Windows is bad.
At my workplace I work on macs. I always have more problems with them than pcs. Mac OS X is not better in any way so it’s totally pointless to make bold statements. For intance last time I was scanning something at work then this happened: http://kukacosalma.buzz.hu/files/macosx.png
Then a few weeks ago i got a new wd passport usb hdd and I had to connect it to the mac. Mac OS X had a kernel panic instantly i connected the drive. Can you show me another operating system which freezes when you connect a usb device?
And then there is Transmission, the btclient. I’ve never seen anything like that on any other system that an application which doesn’t use any additional drivers/kernel extensions can hang the whole system without being able to do ANYTHING just moving around the beach ball of death.
Let alone the fact that Apple engineers were pissing on security as we’ve read after every pwn2own contest…
You know that’s why I know that it’s bullshit what you’re talking about. Because i experienced for years that OS X is not better at all. Not even from a usability point of view.
With a capital “I” – I think we get your point – YOU prefer Windows and YOU have problems with them…
Sure, my Windows XP laptop freezes when I plug in my external USB drive.
I’m not raising my voice very often in MICROS~1 related topics, but I had an interesting observation which I think is worth sharing.
Comparing this to the MICROS~1 advertising, I see a parallel to how political parties advertisement has changed in Germany: In the past, a party said: “Vote for us, we’re the best!” Today, they say: “Vote for us, the others are worse!”
Instead of concentrating on the own strengths, it seems that advertisement wants to “imply” strengths by showing other one’s weaknesses and try to create a comparative situation. For such a setting, you don’t even need any strengths, you just have to show something as a weakness (even if it’s not). You can even abandon all principles of comparison and compare “apples to oranges”.
And because we’re talking about advertisement here, you don’t need to stick with the truth. A claim is enough.
Finally, I don’t think the advertisement clip shown will convince those who want to say goodbye to “Windows” to buy a PC again… but that’s just my individual opinion, because I’m not in the target group of MICROS~1’s advertisement department. 🙂
Edited 2009-04-05 11:52 UTC
WHAAAAAZZZUUUPPPPP!!! I mean man, all your base belong to us! Wheres the beef?
Man, that’s irritating, I can’t read anything you write with that 10 year old joke glaring in my face.
And it still exists today in Windows Vista; crap layered on crap layered on crap layered with new flavour of crap. Microsoft Windows is the quintessential example of a crap product whose lack of leadership from the top down shows in everything part of the operating system.
From the GUI to the various bundled applications it looks like a Linux distribution from over 10 years ago where every bundled application uses a slightly different widget kit based on when it was developed; I’m not talking about look and feel, I am talking about the fact that over 20 years Microsoft has developed and evolved widget kits (command controls as some call them) and continues to use them to this day.
Microsoft reminds me very much of the stoner who sits in the corner of the room who goes, “dude, you just like need to chill out, colour it a gaudy dark grey with some transparency and call it vista – like vista reminds me of my beach house where I got this narley root from this hot chick!”.
Edited 2009-04-05 13:04 UTC
While Apple did advertise some of the strengths of their products, they did as much Microsoft bashing as anything else. Still, I agree with you, and it’s the same here in the US with political parties. Now it seems Microsoft and Apple are jumping on this train, where they don’t advertise the strengths of their own products but spend time putting down the competitor, and one has to wonder why. Do neither of them have enough strengths to show? Or does that just take more time, and it’s easier to put down your opposite number?
As for me, I’m one of the Mac users who doesn’t give a crap about how their computer looks, but I really do like OS X. And as for under powered… well, I’ll take my 2.4ghz Macbook which can get me up to five hours of battery life (with wifi on and performance set at full I might add) and only ways about 4lbs over most cheap PC laptops that might get half that battery life (if I’m lucky) and have less power, and way a hell of a lot more to boot. Honestly, I’ve found that once you actually get into the same hardware characteristics of a PC versus an Apple (the power, the weight, the battery, and the form factor), the price difference isn’t as big as Microsoft would like to make it out to be.
You should really pay closer attentions to the Apple Mac/PC ads. Of course Apple shows their advantages.
I clearly said Apple does both, they do show their strengths but recently they have, at least with their Mac ads, resorted to putting down the competition a number of times. That is why I wonder why, instead of showing the strengths of a Mac (of which there are plenty) they’ve resorted to it. Specifically, remember the beam counter ad, the one about fix vista vs advertising? At no point in that recent ad does Apple show the strengths of the Mac, but rather they show the weaknesses of Vista. There have been others, to a lesser extent, but that one sticks out in my mind the most.
Some of their other ads, such as those for the iPhone, are done very well and specifically show off the iPhone’s strengths. But their Mac ads, of late, leave a bit to be desired in this area.
Careful you don’t get hit with a patent infringement cease and desist take down letter.
Then there are people like me who have no interest in OS X per se, but is still looking at a macbook pro for my next laptop since it seems that Apple is the only company left in the world capable of making a decent laptop that doesn’t look like crap.
Most large companies with a dominant position (like Microsoft or Coca Cola) Don’t advertise to increase sales or market share, they advertise to prevent a decrease and to prevent existing customers from defecting. Microsoft doesn’t expect Apple users to switch to Windows because of these adds, they want their current customers to feel content with their choice and to not consider switching to Apple.
Then why purchase it? if it isn’t primarily for the operating system – there are so many vendors out there who make nice laptops – why not go for a Sony Vaio then?
Most users content with their choice don’t know any better; its like seeing people who have been brain washed by a totalitarian regime and a person observing them say, “don’t they realise how crap their life is? I can’t believe they actually believe what the system says!”
When you know there is no viable alternative to what you use – are you really content or are you just in a state of, “well, this is as good as its going to get – I might as well get used to it!”
Why not go for a Sony Vaio? Seriously?
Wait till it breaks and how they handle customers. Then you’ll know because I’ll never buy one again. My colleague’s mbpro motherboard died two weeks ago and Apple replaced it free of charge, despite the fact that her applecare had expired 5 months ago. That, in addition to OSX, is also one of the reasons I keep using a mac today.
I guess I’ve been pretty lucky in that I’ve never had that experience. My personal preference if operating system were no issue – a Lenovo Thinkpad. If Lenovo and Apple tomorrow signed an OEM agreement; I’d be more than happy to purchase a lenovo thinkpad.
Dell Adamo + Mac OS X. Would be my perfect laptop. I find Apple’s laptops bland and boring, and the Adamo is fresh and enticing.
Just between you, me and the water cooler – I can’t work out why some people rave about the Mac design; its hardly earth shattering by any stretch of the imagination. The MacBook white is very basic, it does its job but it certainly doesn’t look impressive enough to justify the purchase solely on the grounds of looks.
This is one of the discussions that took place on macrumors, whether someone would be willing to purchase a non-Apple computer if Apple fully supported non-Apple hardware from big name OEM”s. The vast majority said they would go with non-Apples with a very small minority sticking with Apple hardware. Apple know this and that is why you’ll never see one of the big OEM’s ever be able to obtain a licence from Apple to sell Mac OS X powered machines.
Edited 2009-04-05 14:15 UTC
I agree that the white and black MacBooks are pretty uninteresting and I’ve no interest in buying one. However but the pro and air are very nice.
Dell Adamo? You really are going for aesthetics alone, aren’t you? Even the Macbook Air is a better deal, just look at the actual specifications of the Adamo and see how underpowered it is for the price point they’re selling it. You’d be better off with a Sony Vaio if you’re willing to pay that much.
I had high hopes for the Adamo, but what I’ve seen does nothing for me. Maybe I’ll change my mind when I see it in real life, but based on the photos and videos I’m not even slightly interested. But I do applaud Dell for trying and really wish more manufacturers would focus more on design
Really? Like? For a technical point of view sure, but I’ve found very few laptops that appeal to me from a design and aesthetic point of view.
Because I think the 17″ Macbook pro looks better than the equivalent Sony, and it has great technical specs. Sony makes some really nice small laptops though.
Exactly. Those “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” ads that basically stated “Windoze sux roflol, buy from us!” over and over again totally demonstrated the great features Macs have. Oh wait, they didn’t.
I’m not mac lover, in fact I can’t stand them. But to say Mac’s don’t have the same computing power is just stupid.
They do have the same computing power but it’s usually always more expensive than the cheapest PC with the exact same specs. At least that’s true for low end machines.
This won’t definitely sway me away from macs but it’s a viale argument when you factor cost in. Think about the specs of a mac mini. Any PC is better than that and cheaper. And still I have found a beautiful, silent PC box that could fit just as well under my TV. And to be fair if I did, I wouldn’t look at it if it didn’t run OSX…
Yeah, but this advert wasn’t about price, it was about performance.
So my point stands.
One could argue that it’s possible to get a better video card in a certain PC laptops. Other than that, I agree.
Having thousands of different laptops running Vista, is not exactly my definition of “choice”.
Sure, I can choose the hardware but I have to get MS’ broken OS with it. Choice would be for me to be able to buy any of these models *without* an OS.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t say that selling these models with Windows preinstalled should be banned. People want to buy “ready to run” computers and these suit them fine. I can’t see why I should pay MS’ tax for nothing.
Let’s see Lauren buys???
HP…
Giampolo buys????
HP….
Hmmm Windows + HP more choice than Apple with Apple?
Yeah that makes sense!!!
So who is asleep at the wheel here? They should have at least shown another company. Oh, but wait HP is paying money to show diversity!
I desperately want Ballmer fired!
“Sure, I can choose the hardware but I have to get MS’ broken OS with it. Choice would be for me to be able to buy any of these models *without* an OS.”
I don’t think Apple would be happy with that choice, either.
Until they realize that in terms of software power, Windows is a toy OS compared to OSX, which includes all of the UNIX tools, Python, (I think) ruby, its own proprietary Automator, etc. Not to mention that every OSX version is the analog of Windows Ultimate, including multimedia software, Apache, and you can even get a widely used package manager for OSS software.
I’m as much of a Unix fan as the next geek, but calling Windows a toy OS is either ignorant or disingenuous. Python, ruby, apache and all the unix tools run just fine on windows. Plus windows has a bunch of unique and powerful tools of its own like power shell.
OK, it was an exaggeration. But in comparison to OSX, Windows has very little power out of the box. You can make it reasonably powerful by augumenting it with free software (or pretty damn powerful by augumenting it with some rather expensive software). But “as is” OSX beats Widnows on software abilities by a ridiculous amount.
Edited 2009-04-05 12:50 UTC
But really, other than *nix geeks trying to make unfair comparisons, who cares about out of the box? Sure windows XP sucks out of the box, but after quickly installing a selection free of tools it can reasonably hold its own in most comparisons.
I agree with all, but quickly.
You can do all that stuff on Windows (and I do it), but some of these things are really painful and not quick. You could build images, but that can also be a lot of extra work. The problem is Windows isn’t optimized for doing a lot of things quick, but on the other hand this isn’t really one of the goals Windows really tries to accomplish, even if there seems to be some work.
Setting up a non-Microsoft development environment for example can really take a long time and be a pain.
Actually, one thing that Windows is missing out on is package management. There is nothing approaching a decent package manager for Windows.
But apart from that you’re pretty much spot on. Windows has the power, so long as you’re willing to spend the time and effort customizing it.
Most apps (really app worth using) use one of a small handful of install apps that register with the system so they can be easily uninstalled.
With *nix, there are a a handful of different package managers to install programs with. Granted, it’s generally only one per system, but, package managers were needed to solve a problem *nix software installs have that Windows installs don’t have: dependencies.
The firefox-3.0.a2_6,1 port for FreeBSD requires 40+ packages (I stopped counting at 25, was only a third down the list)
Okay. I know many of those are already installed on my system, but many are not. And, when I remove the firefox package, all those dependencies remain on my system. Windows app installs don’t have that problem.
No, they don’t. Rather than leave dependencies all over the place, they can leave bits of themselves all over the place depending, of course, on how well their uninstaller was done. I don’t really consider that an improvement.
. And some package managers, namely apt, don’t leave unneeded dependencies around if you don’t want them to, use the autoremove function and presto, they’re gone.
Python, Ruby etc can be ported to Windows if you can accept that they don’t work just right on Windows, but Unix/Linux is where they were developed. That should tell you something, but I’m sure it won’t. The Power Shell — Microsoft finally realized that Windows really desperately needed what Unix had 35 years earlier.
I work with python on Windows every day. What doesn’t work?
If you’d actually checked out Power Shell you’d realize it’s nothing like what Unix had 35 years ago.
Look I’m not a MS fanboy and I’ve worked for years as a Unix sysadmin, but all this uninformed windows bashing is getting silly.
If MS suddenly sees Apple as a threat to their monopoly, then why not just kill MS Office for the Mac? That would do more damage to Apple than any series of commercials.
I wonder if they are asking the question of how much revenue due Mac sales take away from Windows, vs how much revenue they get from Office for the Mac? Also consider that if MS did manage to kill Apple, there would be zero competition (for all practical proposes), and they could jack up the cost of Windows and Office.
Edited 2009-04-05 12:36 UTC
“this computer does everything that I need”. That’s definitely the phrase that stroke me the most.
I custom built my first WindowsXP notebook in 2004, and now, after 5 years, it’s still working reasonably well under my very own fingers right now. Last December I bought a new 18.4″ VAIO from Sony. One hell of a machine with some very strong specs that cost quite a hefty amount of money. It came with Vista preinstalled. To my absolute dismay I came to realize that I not only couldn’t do the same things I did on my old XP notebook in terms of heavy duty work (I work on pretty heavy files) despite having almost as double the processing power, the amount of Ram and Hd space, but I also realized the machine was barely usable to say the least. Most of the features or the “things this computer will allow me to do” as to speak as the Msoft ad, were absolute gimmicks, I would almost say false advertising. That machine is a 18″ brick that struggles even on editing text, let alone video or do 3d stuff. I had a very hard time, I almost got to the point of returning the machine, almost got depressed when I realized I couldn’t. I finally installed WindowsXP after a long while (conflicting drivers, wrong medias, you name it) and guess what? Now the machines screams, as it should. In the end this advertising drives me nuts. Angry to say the least. It does for a few reasons:
1) It keeps on going on the same “we have the features” road that Microsoft has been following for the last 5 years. No matter if the features are half implemented, or if they are a pain to use. The important is to have them well written onto the box.
2) It keeps on identifying PCs with Microsoft. Pcs are personal computers. The choice of hardware and power has definitely no link with microsoft. It is true that when you go out and buy a Pc, 95% of the time comes with a Microsoft OS, but identifying the twos is misleading (and sure, the Apple ads do not help as well into this, maybe they should be the first to be blamed for this)
3) And yet this difference has been blurred during the years. My out-of-the-box experience with the latest Vista equipped Pcs has been terrible to say the least. Pcs are tools, they are supposed to work and DO things. If they don’t, then they’re flawed. Should I blame Microsoft or should I blame the manufacturers? Well I would blame the manufacturers at least for bundling such a crappy software with their machines. And yet, since Microsoft is calling guys like SONY something like “licensed manufacturers” and then you see ads like these… I guess some (if not most) of the blame should go to them as well.
In the end, if I have to be harsh I would call this ads deceptive advertisement, if I have to be mild, I would say they’re just lame, a pathetic attempt to sport a happy face when the sales are still going only because people have no real choice when they buy a notebook PC.
Here is something that’ll make you chuckle, apparently the specifications for the said machine is as follows:
wow, just wow – and that guy has the nerve to call my 2.4Ghz MacBook ‘under powered’. As for the 3 hours; probably on ultra-castrated performance mode – where as I can easily get 4 hours without any compromises.
Its amazing how when curious individuals go out and investigate the hardware being hyped on the ad – it turns out to be utter crap; just like Lauren and laptop which is filled with desktop components, a low resolution screen and a battery life of 1 1/2 hours; and weighs like a sack of bricks.
Well, at no point in advertising is truth an essential commodity. Truth can be glossed over as long as they think that enough people will believe the lie.
Of course, its amazing how we have the Apple haters who come out but never actually ask, “well, what are the specifications if it is so much better than Apple”. Well, we never find out. Its all based on price and price alone. How many people do you know who make their purchase solely on price versus what they require and then balance up whether they’re willing and able to save up for it (realistically)?
Most customers I see tend to go in, they find what they want – look at what they want to do and what the device does and then weigh up how they are going to pay for it and whether they’re happy paying that price. At no time have I ever seen people gravitate to a product solely for the sake of price or even specifications.
This is the other thing I don’t understand; the boasting about specifications – I’ve yet to hear a user talk and talk about specifications – its always, ‘does it run [software title]’ and ‘can I do [thing] on it’ but never running through specifications as the two ads did. Neither of them represent the 80% of end users – they represent yuppies dressed up as middle America and sure as heck don’t represent the process in which people purchase things. Even I don’t make a decision to purchase a computer without researching for a few weeks.
Edited 2009-04-05 14:11 UTC
Whenever I look at Apple specs I come away thinking “Weird”. Eight cores. high end video card… and 512MB of RAM. Apple intentionally specs systems with high points they can advertise, but with insanely unrealistic standard configurations to make comparisons more difficult. One wouldn’t think it to be an effective strategy. And yet it seems to have worked well for them. Go figure.
Where are they selling computers with 512MB RAM? or are you referring to 512MB of VIDEO memory?
Regarding the video memory, its always leaves me confused but then again, what leaves me more confused is why hasn’t a third party vendor jumped up to address the demand for video cards – specifically providing workstation based graphics cards for the Mac market.
For me it is more like a few months. The wife’s laptop is next to dead, so I’m looking at buying a new one for me and giving her what i currently have (2ghz penryn, 4 gigs of ram, 2x250gig hard drives, nvidia 9800). I love apple machines, and every time I go through this dance, I always look at apple machines. Currently, the only laptop spec that meets my needs (desktop replacement) is the highest end machine, which is 3000$ CAD.
So when I go to futureshop.ca and see an HP HDX with the same video card, an 18.4″ screen, quad core, and 500gig hard drive for 1000$ less, I tell myself “Hey, I’m paying something for the portability if I go apple.” So I look at the Sony VGNAW110D, which has a markup due to portability and esthetic, and is almost the same specs as the apple (slightly worse video card, slightly larger screen), and is less then half its price (1400$). But hey, apple is known for using good quality parts, why not compare it with something like Lenovo? Unfortunately, lenovo doesn’t offer what I want when it comes to power, but just for the hell of it, the Thinkpad T500 with discrete graphics, with ram and harddrive bumped to bring it to equivilent apple specs is 1735$, compared to a 15″ mpb which is 2700$, so we are still talking 1000$ difference.
No matter how you swing it, apple laptops are about 2x the cost of what is offered by other people, even other people where you pay for the brand name. I really hate it, because I love OSX. But I am not willing to put down 1000$ for the right to run it. Instead, I engage in a bit of civil disobedience; buy a legit copy of OSX and then hack it to run on PCs. If I want to play games I can always boot into windows, but I still have my textmate. 300$ markup over everyone else I could swallow, 500$ would hurt, but I would still do it, but I am simply incapable of spending 1000$ for an apple logo on the back of my machine.
i.e., pay for for the right to ethically break the law.
Personally, if I wanted OSX and had decided to go that route, I don’t see any problem with picking up a copy of OSX for free through whatever means is convenient. The unethical behavior was initiated by Apple, Inc after all. But that whole world is messy, messy, messy.
I don’t use Linux *because* it is free. And not really even because it is Free. But it sure is nice not to have to face all the moral decisions that Apple and Windows folks do. And I don’t particularly care for parting with money, either.
Edited 2009-04-05 15:22 UTC
Its all about what you need to accomplish. Apple makes a very small line up of products (they used to try and be everything to everyone but resulted in no one being happy) and unfortunately if your requirements fall outside their product line up – there isn’t much one can do. For me, my requirements are very rigid; it must run Mac OS X which means I only have a limited choice – but for someone where the OS doesn’t matter then they have a larger selection they can choose from.
Its all about requirements and what is on offer; if HP doesn’t offer it but Dell does, does it mean necessarily that Dell is better than HP over all? if Apple offers it but HP doesn’t, does it mean that Apple is better over all? Again, its all about what niche the company is aiming for.
Sure, you have a bigger variety and larger price range but at the end of the day, you buy what suits you and what you want; but simply having a bigger variety doesn’t automatically make something whole sale better considering that everyone’s requirements are different – hence the reason for what I said that there should be 5-6 operating systems, each catering to a different requirement rather than trying to be a jack of all trades and no one being happy as a result.
Edited 2009-04-05 15:41 UTC
Amazing comment, just how I feel. I switched to a Mac when I tried out the Vista beta. I could see where that was going and jumped ship. No regrets on that at all. Vista is an unacceptable product to foister on end users, in my mind.
the guy says that he’s looking for mobility and he leaves the store with a big desktop-replacement model with meager battery life. yeah, great choice.
That was my reaction; I was thinking, “hmm, that doesn’t look like its going to get much battery life out of it”.
Oh, and isn’t it interesting how we never actually find out what these people us their laptop for; its always abstract, “ooh, I need power” or “oooh, I’m a power user” but nothing nailed down as to what he actually uses it for.
Me? A MacBook with 4 1/2 hour battery life; I’ll take that over any souped up machine that ends up having a 1 1/2 hour battery life like Lauren got with her PC.
for Microsoft…
I do like Apple hardware, now that they dumped Motorola and the other crap they used to have.
But if you want a REAL OS, you have to go Linux.
Sorry Mac and MS fanboys.
A real operating system that doesn’t have Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, Quicken, Toast, EyeTV, iLife, iWork, iChat, numerous Mac OS X features etc. Mate, Linux is great on the server but don’t delude yourself into thinking with your alpha male chest beating BS that Linux is a ‘real OS’.
The day when I can go down the road and purchase software off the shelf for Linux from big name software vendors, and purchase USB devices from big name vendors will be the day when I feel that Linux has ‘come of age’. Until then, enjoy hacking around trying to get things working or trying to work out why the latest kernel update has improved your ath5k support but the 8169 ethernet port has just died.
So it’s not enough that software is good, it also has to cost money and have a nice logo on it?
How about it actually bloodying working; show me a single application on Linux that does all what the EyeTV/Elgato does – both easy to use, setup etc.
Show me equivalents in all areas to the applications I mentioned – oops? you can’t? yes that’s right, there no equivalents.
You are the weakest poster – good bye!
Kaiwai, I’m always glad to see your posts, you’re half my age but you already know more about computers than I ever will. But I disagree with you here.
I run Mandriva 2008.1 on both my machines here in Korea (I’m from England, however), dual booted with XP and I always feel happy in Mandriva, everything is where I want it to be and there’s no complication. I also feel that Microsoft OSes are toys and after using 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98SE (great little OS), a smidgin of 2000 and then moving on to XP of various “flavours” (but I started out on an Apple IIe and then played around with an Acorn Atom – both 6502 machines), Mandriva has always made me happy. KDE is great, there is no problem with viruses or malware, and on the same system (four year old Athlon with half a gigabyte of RAM, 80gig HDD, Radeon 9200SE) it just flies.
I have set up a book for a friend recently for publishing using TextMaker (from Germany, q.v.) exporting to faultless PDF (for colour separation at the printer’s) after preparing the graphics with GIMP; I also used GIMP for the graphics of a web site I was asked to prepare last year – but everything on each page was hand-coded using Leafpad. It all works without a problem. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had any kind of Mandriva-related problem on this machine – XP Pro has been reinstalled several times since I put MDV 2008.1 on it.
I guess the bottom line is that if you have an OS ( perhaps with software bundles) that allows you not to search for things, experiment and make mistakes, then maybe an Apple or something similar is for you (and I would not disparage Apple, by the way – far from it!), but Linux requires you to experiment and learn. As a scientist, this seems to me to be a good thing. But Microsoft and Apple can be said to be mainly for people who like things simple, or for so-called “power users” (highly-specialised single-app experts), whereas with Linux – even with a nice GUI, like with Mandriva – you have to be willing to learn.
For myself, I have no desire to be a chest-beating Alpha Male but Mandriva beats XP into the dirt, and I would never touch Vista at all, ever. But Linux on my desktop functions perfectly and if there is a problem I become stronger as a user because I am prepared to experiment and learn.
Anyway, I’m not having a go at you, just saying that if you can have a different OS that achieves the same ends by different means then go for it. After all, if MacOS and its bundles didn’t allow you to do the same as or more than Microsoft, it wouldn’t be much use, now would it? Should we disparage Apple for achieving the same ends by different means, or praise them for giving us more choice?
The problem I have are people who equate platform choice to a moral or intellectual deficiency of the given poster. All the posts I make are only relevant to myself and thus I never try to extrapolate my experiences to the rest of the world. All I can do is explain why something happens based on my own circumstances.
The problem as far as I see it are the number of people who equate their experiences to something that objective fact; or more correctly, that their emotionally driven opinions amount to something that can be objectively analysed.
Just look at the posts replying to mine when my opinion is that I need certain applications and only replies have been little more than ridicule.
Man, I find myself in absolute agreement with you. ^_^
Those are applications. Like a lot of Microsoft advocates, you’re real confused about the difference between an operating system and an application.
OS/X is based squarely upon Unix, therefore a close relative of Linux.
Yes, and applications make or break a platform – they make a platform useful to the end user.
How is an operating system useful to me when I can’t get the applications I want? do you just stare at a blank screen all day and bask in the glow of the GNOME desktop? I wish I had so much time where I didn’t actually care about actually running applications on the operating system – that I can just look at it all day and have satisfaction.
Its not based on UNIX (System V being Unix), it is XNU, which is Mach/BSD and it happens to conform to the Single UNIX Specification 2003 (SUS 2003) – so it isn’t UNIX based by any stretch of the imagination.
Your “real OS” comment struck a nerve.
Any OS can be a real OS, IF—
– it installs on a person’s chosen hardware
– if it fulfills that user’s functional needs
So OSX isn’t included here, I understand.
“So OSX isn’t included here, I understand.”
Apple, Inc’s choice. *shrug*
Edited 2009-04-05 18:37 UTC
It’s included for you if you have Mac-compatible hardware and if it meets your needs.
That was my point, to dispute the possibility that an entire operating system can be dismissed as not ‘real’.
Microsoft has a product, and they’re touting one of its strengths. You can buy the machine you want, and you can pay less for it in the process. If you want an inexpensive low end piece of junk that will last a year or two, you can buy that. If you want a high end or high quality piece of hardware that will last five years, you can do that. Heck, you can even run Windows on hardware with an Apple logo.
Windows may not have many strengths, at least not in my opinion, but Microsoft hit the nail on the head with this campaign.
Is this campaign targeting Mac users, or just trying to prevent existing Windows users from bleeding away? Well, only Microsoft’s marketing department will know that (and I would suppose it is a closely guarded secret). Yet I would have to guess that both factors are true. While I doubt that they will swing many hard-core Mac users, there are an awful lot of soft-core Mac users right now.
By soft-core, I mean people who bought a Mac within the past couple of years because it was a trendy thing to do. Those people may care about styling, but styling is subjective and usually secondary anyways. Yet I doubt many of those users care terribly much about which operating system they use. Mac OS X is certainly a strong choice for the Unix aficionado. Mac OS X is certainly a strong choice for people who like a clean use interface. But does Mac OS X have much of an edge for people who spend virtually of their time in a web browser, word processor, and a handful of other software?
(Note: I cannot speak for the advertisement in this post since video streaming is all but impossible in my community. But I have seen the prior commercial in this series.)
And I got no surprise here,
Apple fanboys, Microsoft fanboys, linux evangelists.
Again if people are making stupid choice let them be, if you bash them for their choice you are a facist.
personally I found these ads refreshing, because lately ads for computer looks more and more for artsy people or corporate business. And here we have average people picked off the street ( at least look like they have been picked off the street) .
And again IMHO, I found these are the best trollbait microsoft could come with ( hell better than UAC issue management ).
It’s Macevangalists and Linux zealots. Well, at least you got the Microsoft bit correct.
(many) Windows users say, Macs are too expensive… Mac users are just show-offs, etc.
Windows users are protecting their egos by defending their (Windows) brand, since they are labeled windows users, and don’t want to be ‘wrong’. The ego feels good to be ‘right’, so while I own a PC, PCs are better.
This would be an interesting commercial… A guy walks into a store and the store owner offers to give away a Mac or a PC for FREE! How many would pick a Mac in that scenario??
I find it funny that young people (with less funds) are always chosen in the anti-Mac commercials. What about the larger market of people that have more funds available, than the 20 somethings?? These more mature people realize that spending a little more on a product (often) means less headaches down the road.
Not worrying about viruses, a stable OS, user friendly tools for images, video, music, etc.. (built in for FREE) is part of having less headaches.
Mac users are protecting their egos by defending their (Apple) brand, since they are labeled Apple users, and don’t want to be ‘wrong’. The ego feels good to be ‘right’, so while they own a Mac, Macs are better.
This would be an interesting commercial… A guy walks into a store and the store owner offers to give away a Mac or a PC for FREE! How many would pick a Mac in that scenario??
I find it funny that young people (with less funds) are always targeted in the Mac commercials. What about the larger market of people who have more funds available, than the 20 somethings?? These more mature people have come to realize that foolishly wasting money on fashion (often) means financial headaches down the road. Which is why they have become more financially secure.
Not worrying about viruses is part of having less headaches. Which is why the smart folks use Linux. Didn’t MacOS X just get trivially exploited at a high profile event?
Edited 2009-04-05 16:37 UTC
Yeah, it could be co-produced by Microsoft ~and~ Apple. All of the people who pick Macs could be in the Apple commercial and all of the people who pick PCs could be in the Microsoft commercial.
If you’re attempting to use television commercials to ‘prove’ something, forget it.
Anyway, if given that choice I’d pick the Apple. Why? Because I can afford to buy my own PC.
Microsoft is positioning itself as “cheap” against “cool”.
If I were Apple, I would respond: “Yes, we are cool. If you want cheap, look for Linux”.
That would put Microsoft in the corner: if it continued to push the “cheap” card, would remind that there is a cheaper option. The only solution, for Microsoft, would be silence.
I can imagine, three characters in scene:
Linux: “I’m cheap!”
Mac: “I’m cool!”
Windows: ???
Used to be cheap and cool, now just money hungry and lazy.
That’s easy….
Windows: “I can run all the software you are used to and use for your day to day tasks.”
Only problem is the move to Intel by Apple and the plethora of options for running Windows has stopped that line dead.
I know lot’s of switchers who bought VMWare or installed BottCamp in order to have the Windows “Safety Net” only to find that ditching those programs for OSX equivalents was actually not difficult.
However from the advertising perspective, it’s enough that you can do it and even in the Apple Mac/PC adds they have already headed this one off at the pass.
Yes. I began to think I can buy a Mac when they moved to Intel and VMWare and BootCamp available on them. But, after two month I bought my first MacBook, I swept out VMWare and BootCamp Windows and found nothing in my life affected.
I’m picky, too. I buy a PC and then install Linux on it.
However, the iMacs of my sister and my mother are nice computers, too. And they are (were) cost effective! The nice thing about the Macs is, they just work. Win XP didn’t even support my network card out of the box! (Linux did. I only use Win XP about every 3 Months to play some games (like Portal).)
who cares about ads any way
Most people that I know love their Macs and say “You should really try OS X”.
Most people that I know are frustrated with their PCs and are paranoid about viruses attacking them, and think about taking advice from their friends with Macs.
That’s the reality.
And again, I’m raising my voice on this topic, allthough anything “Windows” related isn’t a topic for me.
At least for Germany, I have a slightly different characterization. Those who use “Windows” are usually convinced that there’s nothing else. If they encounter problems (and most of them do), they think it’s completely normal (e. g. reinstalling, formatting, not working, wrong driver, not supported, needs codec, not availabe, etc.). So of course they are frustrated, but they believe it needs to be this way. According to viruses and malware: Most of them simply don’t care. They could have a machine spamming the Internet and hosting several databases for illegally copied software, and they wouldn’t even notice, nor would they care.
Mostly, some Mac or Linux guy comes along and shows them alternatives. Then, the “Windows” users are really surprised and sometimes even think a different platform / OS would be worth a try. But they’re usually too lazy to change their mind. People stick to what they are familiar with, and if they are familiar with a problematic OS, they will continue using it up to the point where they can’t get a pirated copy of it anymore, or the CD they installed on all their PCs won’t work on their new one. But still, they’re impressed about how other systems work. And if they are told the advantages, they can’t believe it. Seriously, I know a guy who can’t believe that it’s okay to download Linux for free and use it without registrating, but the same guy has lots of pirated software on his laptop, but cannot play the simplest standard video formats. Fiddling with “Vista” is a real problem for him. His HP laptop with quire good specs needs several minutes to be usable, and he’s always impressed when I show him how my old Siemens-Fujitsu laptop (only 500 MHz) beats his system in nearly everything (no viruses, more software, faster, runs longer without power cord, more silent, more compatible). Of course, he needed someone else to install some software on his laptop to browse the web, do email, create standard documents, print images, watch videos, play music and all the comfortable things Mac and Linux / UNIX users can take for granted.
Coming back on topic, I don’t think that the kind of commercial discussed will modify the path “I only want what I already know” most people use for thinking, simply because they’re already “familiar” with “Windows” – in fact, they’re not, they’re just believing it. And isn’t advertising a bit about believing, instead of knowing? “I believe that ‘Windows’ is the better OS.” – “At least for me, I know it’s not, and I know why.” If you want to convince people to make their choice in an educated way, out of their own thoughts, don’t show them commercials. The belief that “Windows” is oh so great results from the fact that if problems occur, these problems have to be handled by others.
My experience with Windows users? They can never shut up about what you can’t do with the non-Windows OS of your choice. Then on top of that they claim they’re the ones being wronged when anyone has the gall to call them on it.
Poor little Microsoft. I think their feelings were hurt.
No, not *the* Giampaolo. That would have been crazy! Dominic works for Apple.
And if you didn’t do a double take when you read that line, you haven’t been on OSNews long enough…
The essential story bit is under read more yet again, Thom. Another “honest mistake”, I’m sure.
Edited 2009-04-06 01:56 UTC
What story link? The only “story” link here is the link to the new advertisement on YouTube… Which is located right in the teaser. There isn’t even a link at all in the read more.
He wants a laptop with power, portability, and lots of battery life
Strange, his choice for this HP does not fulfill any of that!!!!
This poor Giampaolo wanted portability, battery life and power, unfortunately for him it gets any of that with this HP laptop. He gets a gigantic peace of crap with poor battery life, bad screen resolution for a 16 inch screen, old generation memory architecture, and a slower processor that you would get with Macbook priced at 1599$.
HP rates this computer with 3 hours battery life. A Macbook is rated with 5 hours battery life. So where is the “lots of battery” Microsoft?
And the ad talks about performance, this poor guy buys a computer with several generations old memory. The HP works with DDR2 533 mhz memory, this is old and terribly slow compared to Apple’s offering. A MacBook in comparison works with DDR3 1066 mhz memory. So what did they say, “Macs to me are about aesthetics more than they are the computing power”, really? What i see is that this guy is buying a wonderful peace of crap.
On top of that, he gets it with a 2.13 mhz processor, a macbook at $1599, only $99 higher than its budget, has a 2,4 ghz processor and again with a well faster memory architecture. So that the added $99 are nothing, it is just worth it. And as i said the screen of the HP is a shame, you get 1366×768 pixels in a 16 inch display, miserable!!!!
Yes the HP has faster graphics, but that does come to the game, given that the HP does not deliver at all on portability and battery life and this what the ad is referring to as the primary choice together with power. This ad is an incredible peace of crap from Microsoft, incredible…. I mean this poor guy ends up buying a computer weighting more than 7 pounds, yes 7 pounds, and the ad says that he is looking for portability? Come on!!!!
This computer is from 1.31 to 1.70 inch thick, by comparison a Macbook weights 4.5 pounds and is 0.95 inch thick!!!! Portability Microsoft, sure talk about that….
Also HP sells you that with Windows and poor bundled software, nothing, absolutely nothing comparable to iLife and OS X. And that’s the key, you like it or not, HP sells you hardware with third party software. Apple sells you software and hardware that it develops, this is what makes the Microsoft ad completely meaningless when it comes to price comparison with pc hardware makers which do not build their own software.
And anyway, this ads are rather non sense, this is typical of what makes Microsoft, a company without any test, even unable to advertise it own products. I mean by not advertising Windows directly but instead going to a meaningless price comparison, Microsoft admits that it can’t advertise Windows against Apple’s ads which are mainly centered around the operating system and what you can do with the computer. Microsoft goes to a price comparison that ultimately can be used against itself. And compare with Apple’s ad, it tries to be so serious. In contrary, Apple’s ads are largely based on humor and sarcasm to spread the message.
HP does not produce software, it does build Windows, why to advertise a product that Microsoft does not do? The hardware.
“For the rest, the ad focusses on the things that Apple can’t offer its customers: low prices”
I don’t understand, if you come to be an Apple customer, you don’t expect low prices from the beginning. I mean, low prices = low quality, as the HP laptops that those people on these ads have chosen. An Apple customer does not expect that, he expects a high quality built machine which tries to the best to balance portability and performance. And an Apple customer does not buy a computer, he buys a platform, because Apple sells a platform, so speaking of low prices does not make sense for that reason. HP sells a computer that runs a third party OS, and this association makes a platform, but HP only creates the hardware. Again, Apples sells you software and hardware, a platform that it builds together.
If you like this model, as it brings high quality products and innovative software, you are or can be a customer of Apple. If not, then you don’t buy Apple.
Show off your own strong points, and if those strong points happen to be the weak points of your main competitor – two birds, one stone.
No this is not a weak point of Apple as again, Apple sells a platform, HP sells a computer that runs third party software that makes the pc platform, not having low prices is not a weakness, it is a consequence. And i doubt that having low prices is a strong point, as it clearly opens the door to poorly designed computers as those ads have shown. In other words, Microsoft says you buy crappy computers to run our OS.
Recall the Lauren ad, she ended up buying the Pavilion HP, which is remarkable in this:
1. The operating system installed is Vista Home. Guess what it means.
2. It runs on a slow AMD mobile processor with old DDR2 RAM (the same type of RAM that is used in netbooks).
3. The screen is “abysmal†(http://forums.slickdeals.net/showpost.php?p=15794176&postcount=5).
4. As usual, it comes pre-loaded with all kinds of crapware.
5. It comes with 802.11G wireless and 100MB Ethernet which is even surpassed by netbooks. Ouch!!!!
6. Actual battery life is just over an hour.
7. It is a beast weighing in at almost eight pounds and is two inches thick.
8. Etc…
And as i said, the choice of Giampaolo is not better either. So the final point is that those ads have opened wide doors for Apple for new sarcastic ads.
Well done Microsoft….
Why is it that they keep Buying the Worst Passable Laptop that will have a broken power tap and a Cracked lid in less than a year in these adds?
the adds should end with
Congratulations *** it’s a POS! in a year you will regret not spending more on a ThinkPad
I guess I am Shuttering too much over the Lack of Quality in Consumer grade PC’s and the Great Customer service they will be getting at that Big Box Store for the add to have any effect on me.
Edited 2009-04-06 13:48 UTC