Archive for August, 2008

By now chances are good that you've heard about Microsoft's plan to fight back against Apple's Mac Vs. PC ads. There is one big difference between The Mojave Experiment and what Apple is doing though.  In Apple's case the ads are very aggressive.  They point out flaws in Windows Vista (some legitimate, some not) and then show that the Mac platform doesn't have the same issues.  Their commercials have been extremely successful at reaching consumers so, at this point, pretty much everyone has seen one at least once.

The Mojave Experiment on the other hand seems to be an online-only advertisement with which Microsoft plans to diffuse some of the harsh criticism Vista has received over the past year or so.  So really that's the main difference between the two campaigns.  Where as Apple's is an aggressive attack, Microsoft's is defensive.  In the commercials, presumably average consumers are asked to rate their opinion of Windows Vista.  After that they're shown a demo of a new version of Windows code-named Mojave, including all of its features (slick interface, security, so on and so forth).  The peoples' minds are collectively blown and then comes the big reveal - they were just watching a demo of Windows Vista.  They then rate Vista again on a 1-10 scale and, of course, all of their scores go up.

I have mixed opinions about this whole thing.  First off I think it's good that Microsoft is finally firing back rather than feeling inclined to rest on their laurels while Apple slowly chips away at their definitive lead in the PC market.  There's a lot of opinions that have been based on word-of-mouth impressions from Vista at launch, and since then everything has spiraled out of control.  A lot of the negative things people hear about Vista aren't true.  They might have been at one time, but now Vista is very stable, most of the driver issues are gone aside from some extremely niche hardware, and like it or not Vista's default configuration is much more secure than XP (almost to the point of annoyance for some users, read "UAC").

I also appreciate the fact that they didn't fire back with why the Apple platform is bad.  If that had happened this whole rivalry could easily devolve into a childish argument between two elementary school students.  The only problem with the campaign is that some people aren't too keen on the idea of trickery.  I mean really, that's what Mojave is right?  It's a lie.  Not only that but a lot of people are turned off by the fact that the people are really only shown a demo of Vista, and only the features Microsoft wants to advertise.  I read someone's comment on a related blog post that said "Yeah, but if they had access to Vista freely their experience would have been much less positive."  I wouldn't go that far but you do have to keep in mind that this is a marketing campaign, so Microsoft's going to do their best to show off the strongest features Vista has.  The same thing goes for Apple's Mac Vs. PC ads...you never hear about infinite beach balls or buggy patches from them.

In the end I'm not sure if Microsoft can make a large enough push to completely change everyone's opinion of Vista.  The launch of this particular OS has been a bit of a PR nightmare that will take more than one campaign to quell.  That being said I think it's important to note that Vista isn't as bad as everyone says.  Don't believe the hype!  Is it a worthy upgrade?  Perhaps not.  Still, you should have no concern about purchasing a new PC that comes with Vista installed.  You might just find that you like the new interface and some of the new features.  Even on my iMac I use Vista daily so that must say something.

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