Oh, it is so on.

I posted before about Microsoft’s “Mac vs. PC” response ads before and it looks like they’re finally making their way into the world. Let’s begin shall we?

Ok, so I see this and I think rough seas, sinking ship, trouble ahead but that’s just me. I don’t know what you see, maybe it’s blue sky and spirit of adventure. What I do know is that when people thought that the earth was flat, there was no evidence to the contrary. I mean, you couldn’t take a picture of the earth from space and it would take a very brave person to risk their ship by traveling to the ends of the earth to find out. It’s a risk so let’s also add that to what this ad conveys. There is evidence to support that Vista is a dog however. There has been from day one (I’m not going to link to any, you’ve read it and you can easily search Vista Complaints to read to your hearts content). If you are unaware, Microsoft is happy to point out some of those faults to you and good for them. Microsoft leads you to this page which tells you that Microsoft hears your pleas and wants to let you know that Vista is ready now, fully baked and good to go. This is actually a good idea. It means they’re working on it. If I wanted to advertise Vista in a climate that might be hostile to it, I would just say “You have enough decisions to make in a day, your choice of operating system shouldn’t be one of them. Windows Vista–Now one version, one box, one price.” and then I would actually only offer one version, one box and one price and make it work. I don’t blame Microsoft though, they don’t “build the whole widget” and it’s tough to make things work with every available piece of hardware and every available piece of software. I’m not certain that this is going to change any minds or get people on board, especially this late in the game when they are already working on Windows 7 which is expected to be released next year. If the goal is to compete against Apple and gain back some confidence, I’m not sure these are going to work. Apple has gained a significant amount of traction both with their Mac vs. PC ads and with the introduction of the iPhone which is obviously giving Apple some ground in terms of being perceived as innovators. Best of luck to Microsoft. It’s too bad that they are getting ragged on I’m just not sure that this is going to help.