Stop the Noiz

Microsoft: Vista Problems Are Everyone Else's Fault

Frank Fox - 2008.07.10 - Tip Jar

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I love articles like this one: Microsoft Hopes to Counter Apple's Abuse with $300M Campaign, 'Don't Blame Vista' Tool by Jason Mick. for such a big and successful company, Microsoft often appears to be run by idiots - but somewhere in that company they have hired enough good people to keep the company from falling apart.

Apple's Get a Mac campaign

I think complaints about Apple's 'Get a Mac' campaign are overblown. This is marketing, so you don't have to be totally precise in everything you say. Short statements that deliver a message are all you have to do.

It helps that Apple is not trying to create the stereotype - that would be less funny and harder to pass off. Because Apple is only playing up the existing stereotype, it makes the whole thing work.

Microsoft could play this same game back. YouTube has several parodies showing stereotypes of what is missing on the Mac, lack of video games being high on the list. But this type of attack could just show Microsoft to be the copycats that they are believed to be, so it might work against them.

The second half of Mick's article discusses Microsoft blaming hardware vendors for the failure to be ready for Vista, which is another thing I hate about Microsoft. They call these vendors partners, but as the monopoly OS vendor, and they treat everyone as servants. It's just a little too high and mighty for my tastes - and people like to say Apple users are elitists?

Then to ice the cake, Microsoft has created a software program to point fingers at everyone else who made Vista run poorly on Joe Shmoe's computer. Mick states: "The new tool assesses system problems and tries to convince users that they are not Vista's fault. It assigns blame to everything from user impatience to virus and spyware." (Doesn't blaming malware undercut Microsoft's assertion that Vista is more secure than other operating systems?)

I wish I could say good luck to Microsoft with its new marketing campaign, but I can't. Instead, here's to all the suffering Windows users, may you find a way to keep XP alive a little longer.

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