Windows Vista releases tomorrow, clever ad placement by Apple, and a very confusing ad

Finally it's here. Windows Vista is going out into the wild, and now everyone gets to use it. It's cool to see this product finally start to hit the streets. It's been a long time coming, but I think many aspects of it will be worth the wait. Yeah, you can read between the lines there. I wish this product had been released sooner. But there were legitimate reasons for waiting - security is much better than it would otherwise have been, for instance. Still, it's a shame that we waited five years between full OS releases.

It feels like there's a lot of excitement on the Microsoft campus about this release, probably the most excitement since I joined the company in 1999. Again, I'm not sure to what extent the reaction is pent up energy versus true enthusiasm for the product, but I also feel like the product is pretty darn nice. Your mileage may vary, of course, and there are things that annoy me about it - security requires extra mouse clicks that are often very annoying, for instance - but it looks nice and works really well. And I've felt since the moment I saw them that the new navigation strips in Office are incredibly exciting innovations.

I gotta give it up to our competitors, though, for their cleverness. As I type this, Apple has their ads up on the CNN page about Vista. Very clever, Apple! The only problem is that the ad that I saw when I went to the site makes no sense to me. It's the ad on the GetAMac site called "Sabotage." I think I'm a pretty savvy media consumer, and I'm definitely familiar with both the Mac ads and the popular parodies of them. I think that the ad "Surgery" on this page is effective and funny, for instance. But I don't get the point of "Sabotage." Based on the title, it sounds like the PC is manipulating the Mac into saying what the PC wants it to. But what is the point of that? How is that a negative for PC and a positive for Mac? Why would that make anyone want to buy a Mac? If anything, it seems the implied interopability makes Windows networking seem more positive rather than less.

Please post and help me out. I won't delete any comments that don't contain profanity, massively anti-Microsoft comments or slander.

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 29, 2007
  Sabotage is about FUD to belittle the Mac.  The Mac is not the pathetic poser in the video, though that's what some would want viewers to believe. That guy has no substance and you can't fake quality and taste. If you don't get it, could it be that you just assume the FUD against Apple is true?  

• Anonymous
  January 29, 2007
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2007
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 01, 2007
  You need to install QuickTime to see an Apple ad? Who are they trying to convert, their existing customers? The only sites I know of that requires QuickTime to show their content are the Apple sites so it's quite absurd to think anyone but existing users of their products would have it installed and would like to install it to see Apple propaganda videos. I think the ads are merely to try keep their existing customers and to activate them to do the marketing for Apple - and that might even work as their users are quite vocal.