Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

subzerohitman721 — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:27:38 GMT

@Avro,

If I bought Vista for my 5 Windows computers, I would have to worry about all the various edition, I would have to buy new hardware.

The different SKU's of Vista are easily explainable and well documented. With an anytime upgrade, you can switch versions. I decided that Ultimate was the best, regardless of costs. The superset of everything gives me everything I need without the fear of missing something. Its easy now to get cheaper versions of ultimate edition at least here in the D/FW metro area.

As for new hardware, newer CPU's and boards have greater energy efficiency and generate less heat. Memory is at an all-time low and so are hard drives. I'm not saying to go run out and replace all 5 computers. Usually, I just piece together computers as I can afford it.

Today's manufactuers are getting better at making Vista run efficently. Most 3 GB systems run very well with today's cheap memory prices.

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

Joe08 — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:00:51 GMT

The adverts. It was actually the American adverts that were judged here.

Is it easier to set up a home network on a Mac? Yes

Is iLife a good suite? Yes

Is security better an a Mac? Yes

Are Macs easier to set-up? Yes

Do Mac laptops (and most desktops) come with microphones and webcams?

Yes

Is Time Machine good for back-up? Yes..Avro

I don't believe the security issue, there have been no attacks on Vista, it's secure and will get only better.

Please.. PC tools? these companies make their living telling the world the Sky is falling they need a reason to justify their business models, there have been no attack against Vista in the year it's been out on the market.

These same companies are now telling the world that Apple is the next big problem in software,Cellphones are vulnerable blah blah blah.

Time Machine is nice, though thats been out in Windows for a few years now.

I do like i Life, and I wish that Windows had something equivalent, will have to wait until the fall for Vista to have their version.

I know plenty of kids with both platforms, like I said, they both offer value and appeal.

"None of these actually bash Microsoft. There are others that exploit some shortcomings in Windows to be sure, but remember these adverts are meant for switchers and you have to give them some good reasons for choosing a Mac over a Windows machine. You emphasize your positives and the other guys shortcomings."

yes that's the way to do it, then again they are no tangibles in the commercials..like I said fun commercials not based in fact.

I don't hate Apple,I think their great at what they do,I'm just not one of their fans and I've alway been objective

about both products.

I'm very happy that you love your MAC, variety is the spice of life. :-)

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

Avro — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 07:19:34 GMT

You have to be kidding. The security company PC tools has just issued a report that Vista suffers from two-thirds of the vulnerabilities of XP and remember XP has a much bigger user base (the threats go after the big guy). How many users turn off UAC? It was not well-implemented. Don't confuse lab condition hacks on a Mac with real world viruses and malware. Never met a Mac user with any of those. Windows users plenty. In reality it means you just have to be safer than Windows but running all that anti-malware stuff has a disadvantage too.

The adverts. It was actually the American adverts that were judged here.

Is it easier to set up a home network on a Mac? Yes

Is iLife a good suite? Yes

Is security better an a Mac? Yes

Are Macs easier to set-up? Yes

Do Mac laptops (and most desktops) come with microphones and webcams?

Yes

Is Time Machine good for back-up? Yes

Do Macs use MS Office? Yes

Are Macs popular with students? Yes

Do Macs have loads of software aimed at Consumers? Yes

None of these actually bash Microsoft. There are others that exploit some shortcomings in Windows to be sure, but remember these adverts are meant for switchers and you have to give them some good reasons for choosing a Mac over a Windows machine. You emphasize your positives and the other guys shortcomings.

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

Joe08 — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:26:43 GMT

Are the Apple adverts any good? They actually were put to the legal test here in England and they were found to be substantially accurate. My own feeling is they take every annoyance that Windows has had since Windows 95 and it evokes memories in people and they come to the conclusion 'This sucks'. Is this fair, no? The only advantages Apple really has are real software for consumers and a real world security advantage but these are significant...Avro

There is no real world advantage, Vista is more secure.

As for Hardware, Vista should run just fine on your present Hardware as long as it was manufactured in the last 3 or 4 years.

I'm not aware of the commercials in the UK, but here in the states the Commercials are misleading, they present no tangible evidence and simply bash the competition.

Sorry about the activation with Office, I haven't had the same problems here, pretty much activated Office 2007 with no fuss.

I'm not an Apple hater, just being objective.

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

Avro — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:39:39 GMT

I am mainly a MacUser but I have had a pretty good experience with both Windows XP and Ubuntu too.

But I don't think Microsoft gets it.

If I bought Vista for my 5 Windows computers, I would have to worry about all the various edition, I would have to buy new hardware. For our Mac household it cost me £120.

Tuesday I was getting ready to leave on a long trip. I wanted to let my parent know in Canada our contact details. They have a hotmail account. I'm in the Middle East and apparently the floating IP address I was assigned has been used to send out spam so Microsoft bounced my email. :-((

The same day Office 2008 arrived. Install went not too bad but then came product activation (a pain). Lot of us here in Europe have houses with names, not numbers. It refused to a accept that :-((. So I thought I would use my office address, it refused to accept that too. The default setting for country is the US, better to leave it blank (I had to drop my Hotmail account because it kept insisting that I lived in Alabama!) and then it insisted that we enter our county when our address does not have one. :-(( Then I was asked for the product ID. Apple asks for the same thing but helpfully put them on the software box. The Office PID came up but disappeared as soon as I started to type. :-((

Don't ask me how Office 2008 is, I had to catch my plane. :-((

I'm not saying anything bad about Microsoft software here, but the company really needs to learn how to treat customers. I have always felt valued as an Apple customer.

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

Joe08 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:52:02 GMT

O irony thy name is Windows users.

Lets see if this fits "I would never consider buying a Microsoft product, ot because I don't think they make good products, but simply because I would not want to be associated with the more vocal people in the Windows-Jihadists sub group (TM).

Let the mental gymnastics begin...Dude1313

The mental gymnastics is right, you have two mature OS's for a UI perspective, Vista is pretty but really doesn't hit you as revolutionary.

MAC OS X Leopard disappointed when it debuted late and missing most of it's 300 new features and nothing really to write home about.

Both OS's were Buggy when they first became available.

Ye when using Vista over time it becomes obvious that XP is now dated and belongs in the past. and Vista is the present and Future from a platform perspective of Windows.

OSX leopard is a nice upgrade once all the little improvements are used together .

I suspect Apple and Microsoft will push much harder in the next versions of their respective Systems.

Either way you can't lose.

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

Joe08 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:28:32 GMT

Now in May 2008, he gives Vista with SP 1 a shot. Upon first looking at it and giving it a shot, he said and I quote, "Wow, this is easy. Its very beautiful too. I can figure it out." Since then, he uses any spare time to jump on his notebook. He hasn't touched his XP desktop in weeks. subzerohitman721

Perfect example, The whole Vista is only a reworked version of XP is BS.

Vista was changed significantly under the hood down to the kernel for safety and stability.

New graphics engine replacing XP's dated design and a perfect foundation to start with in Windows 7.

I have a Dell XPS Laptop running Vista premium and brought it over to a family get together.

My sister inlaws Husband was running Leopard on his Macbook and generally spends his spare time trying to tear down her perference for XP and trashed talked vista.

When I pulled out my Machine the first thing out if his mouth was, if you cant get it started you can use my MAC to go on line.

When my sister in law and some family started looking at my screen the first question was.. what is that? I answered Windows Vista.

Their reaction was wow thats pretty, after I let them play with my machine for a while I got the same reaction that other people give me.

This is nice, and it's fast, I thought some people said Vista was a problem.

Needless to say I had sold more people on getting Vista with very little effort.

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

subzerohitman721 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:02:01 GMT

Microsoft should hollerback only to kill the negative perception of Vista. Being the fact that the Vista base is much large and yet its considered by a few in the minority a failure.

Let me indulge you with a recent event in my family. My father who is 52 just bought his first notebook. A HP notebook with an Intel Core 2 Duo, 3 GB memory, 250 GB SATA drives, nVidea graphics, wireless N, and 15.4" widescreen. The notebook came with Vista Home Premium and Office 07.

Now keep in mind my father is a very conservative man. Change isn't his forte. He grew up in a pre-PC America. His college days were in the early 1970's when Xerox Parc were just developing the first GUI interface and ethernet. When he went back to college in the mid to late1990's, he picked up courses in DOS, Windows, and PC basics. On his first attempt, he built his own PC from Frys. He held on to Windows 98 till XP service pack 2, then he migrated in late 2004.

The lesson here folks is this. If a man who totally missed the PC era can transition to Vista in 24 hours, then all the excuses about Vista are total BS! Anyone with some Windows experience can handle Vista. Now just because some people want to take the quick and easy route with Apple, thats fine. I don't hate on anyone and I certainly do not lose any sleep over it.

But please, enough with the "So 15 minutes ago" complaints about Vista. Certainly enough with the Vista sucks nonsense. Instead, perhaps Apple and its community should focus on the instabilities in Leopard and work on Snow Leopard.

If you go on youtube, look for the D5 interview with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are good friends. They take vacations, still make fun of each other but its certainly not mean spirited. They are so over the rivalry. For them, it is what it is. Perhaps many Windows and Mac users should learn from their example and tone down the rhetoric.

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

Dude1313 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:45:42 GMT

Dipsh t Admin said:

....However, you do end up alienating potential customers. I would never consider buying an Apple product, not because I don't think they make good products, but simply because I would not want to be associated with the more vocal people in the iCabal (TM).

O irony thy name is Windows users.

Let the mental gymnastics begin...

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

timiteh — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:04:38 GMT

According to me the main problem, Microsoft has while marketing Vista efficiently is that there is almost no discrete features which can create a "WOW" effect to most people.

The greatness of Vista can only be appreciated once one take in account many "apparently" small improvements which when put together make a significant improvement from XP.

I haven't a solution to how Microsoft can manage to change the perception image that people has about Vista but i can do some suggestions for the upcoming version of Windows:

1)The Ultimate version should have a significantly more advanced and prettier GUI than the Home version.

Moreover it should enable the use to switch without significant lag in either Business mode or Home mode and each mode should work almost exactly as respectively the Business version and the Home version.

People buying it must feel that they have a significant added value compared to other versions.

2)The Home version should include several key features which will individually blow away people.

As some obvious example:

*Significant speed increase compared to both Vista and XP on the same machine

*Very impressive U.I,etc...

3)The Business Version should provide high performances,require significantly less ressources than Vista Business and feature flawless backward compatibility with both XP and Vista Business.

4)The Basic version should have a reasonnably pretty U.I and feature a subset of both Home and Business Version functionnalities and run flawlessly on Low Cost PC.

It mustn't be considered as a limited version of Windows Home but as a version for legacy hardware.

More importantly, each version must be marketed differently, thus people won't complain that they don't get what was advertised to them.

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re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

Joe08 — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:08:03 GMT

Attacking Apple in return won't recover that mindshare...they can't steal Apple customers the way Apple can pilfer theirs.

What they can do is teach people that theres no need for a radical *change!*...Ocean

Microsoft doesn't have to attack Apple in their commercials, they just have to point to the facts.

Vista is Secure

Vista is stable and compatible with thousands of different hardware configurations.

Its more cost efficient to own and gives you greater choice of hardware and prices.

It's very pretty to look at with nice transitions(it you like that sort of thing)Otherwise you can change it, It's Windows after all !

More good things to come:)

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

DRWAM — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:45:07 GMT

Loiosh, I got you beat. Picture an ad with me and my cute twins in first grade and cute second grader in my family room where the twins are 'teaching daddy' how easy it is to create a Powerpoint presentation about colors. They did it in first grade. It would show how easy Windows and office is to learn, even for a first grader. Besides, I 'm buff and handsome! Lord it's hard to be humble.....Mommy can be in the kitchen complaining that her iPod died.

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

tayme — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:59:24 GMT

@cesjr - "So you're saying that Paul can freely make arguments -- about whether something is true or correct and other people are wrong -- that constitute unsupported subjective opinion, but a different standard of proof applies to anyone challenging his arguments."

No...I did not say that. I said that it is obvious that is Paul's opinion...the reason is that this is his blog...and that is what he does..posts his opinion. Feel free to challenge his or anyone elses opinions...but keep in mind...everyone can have anopinion. Nowhere did I say that my opinion was the only correct opinion...nor did I sday that Paul's opinions are always right.

Show me where Paul or I said that his or my opinion is the only correct opinion...then you might get a point here. Right here - community.winsupersite.com/.../iphone-3g-s-achilles-heel-is-still-at-amp-t.aspx - is where you did it.

--tayme

re: Microsoft needs advertising that 'just works'

tayme — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:13:43 GMT

@Ocean - "Apple isn't selling people on the Apple platform as much as they are selling people on *change!*. "

Are they by chance running Barack Obama's campaign? ;-)

--tayme