Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Tries a "Switch" Campaign
Twirlip of the Mists writes "There's a new page on Microsoft's web site that tells the first-person story of an unnamed 'freelance writer' who made the switch from the Mac to Windows XP. The author of the page -- who never identifies herself, and who could very easily be fictional or a composite sketch -- says 'Windows XP gives me more choices and flexibility.' How, you ask? Why, through Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and modern operating-system features like separate accounts for each user and easy access to the Internet, of course. Maybe somebody should email Microsoft and let them know that the Mac has had all of these things for years now ... nah. It'd just embarrass them. Anyway, it's an entertaining read that's good for a laugh." Update: 10/14 21:12 GMT by P : Apparently, Microsoft has taken the page down, but Google has it.
Just a few quotes:
... (Mozilla is better anyway).
"AppleWorks (...) pales in comparison to Microsoft Office XP." - isn't there Office X ?
"Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 does more for me than Netscape Navigator ever did" - I wonder what happens when I start my IE on my Mac
"The key to getting hardware to work with your computer is to have the correct drivers" - to be honest: i never installed drivers on my Mac - it just worked out of the box.
IIRC, Microsoft targeted such an ad campaign at Mac people a couple years ago, albeit to get them to use IE & Office for Mac, not switch altogether. The campaign featured what were purported to be testimonials from satisfied customers, but M$ tipped its hand when it launched the ads too quickly, and had "customers" discussing their experience with the latest versions of M$ wares a few days before said versions actually shipped.
While they certainly may be lying, every switcher with an internet presence denies recieving a single dollar from Apple (although they did get lunch).
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
Microsoft has had this report potsted on their Exchange website for a while. http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/techinfo/outlook /FerrisOutlook.asp.
Some research company with "evidence" suggests that you're less vulnerable to getting hit by email viruses if you use Outlook rather than anything else. This report is shoddy, even for Microsoft. I'm amazed they would even post this!
I know, of course that OS X allows multiple users, and its support for multimedia is much better, but does it allow them simultaneously?
Take a look here:3 7
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=17
Looks to me like it's a real person. And looks to me like it was a real interview.
For instance, you don't see commercials where MacDonalds even mentions Burger King or their other competitors
;) and, of course, exceptions and rules go hand in hand so this is probably nit-picking, but what about the ones that go something like:
I too have no training in marketing (but I think I have your paltry 10,000 hours beaten soundly
Twice as much beef as the Big Mac!
I can think of MANY ads in MANY market categories where The Competition is quite intentionally mentioned but it's probably not worth the bandwidth or time.
Also, I am an Apple user, and I just think it's funny (and Bullshit).
The moderation is on target. You sir, are mistaken.
Red Hat 8 has separate account creation for each user right from the control center. And guess what? It's all GUI point-and-click. It's more intuitive and useful than WindowsXP scheme.
You lose. Play again.
Look at the article 'she' shows an example of a file open box .... obviously her real name is 'Don Funk' and quick google search shows 'her' email address is 'donfu@microsoft.com'
If the linked to site doesnt work for you (it doesnt for me under mozilla 1.0), get the image directly from here
Compare it to MS's image
Not according to contacts at Chiat Day in Las Angeles. They sifted through real emails, contacted people, flew 'em to LA, and parked 'em in front of a camera.
No conspiracies here folks.
"Royalty free" doesn't mean "free". You still have to purchase the image. The image shown in the link is a comping image for creating, well, comps to test whether a design idea works before actually purchasing the image.
"Royalty-free pricing is based solely on the size of the product you need, not the specific use. You don't have to pay any additional fees on a use-by-use. Once you purchase a royalty-free product, you may use it multiple times for multiple projects without paying additional fees." <-- from their faq
The actual purchased images come in larger sizes than the comping image, and without the watermark.
This kid is probably one of the best 13 year old writers I've ever seen! Encarta must save him so much time that he doesn't have to go to school anymore. He can continue with his modeling/freelance writer career.
Hey, there's a new encyclopedia - it's called "Google"!
And what about these people?
http://www.microsoft.com/insider/printhelp/
They're all smiling 'cause their #!@%ing XP printer driver finally installed. (sorry, couldn't find this in the stock photo archive. I'm sure it's there though)
This girl is obviously smiling because her Windows PC didn't crash and lose her History paper last night: href=http://www.microsoft.com/insider/homeoffice/ Stock Photo
Now here's a good one: http://www.microsoft.com/insider/productivity/
Stock Photo
Here dad is helping figure out what "fatal error in krnl32.dll means". Say, isn't that a mac they're using?
What the hell are these two looking at? http://www.microsoft.com/insider/finance/
Ah well, I think the whole site is just one big stock art catalog. Once again Microsoft doesn't create anything original...
Yes, but marketing/sales people don't know this, and it's fun to watch.
The university for which I work has a support contract with a big Apple-approved sales & support company. I'm not part of desktop support, so I don't know the details on the company or the contract, but in the Summer of 1999 two of their reps came in to update IT folks on the latest Mac offerings.
The first rep had a sales title and was upfront about not having any technical skills. She was fine, but we were all eager to talk with the second rep, who the sales lady played up all morning. He bore the title of "Systems Engineer" and, according to the sales lady, formerly worked for Apple on core portions of the Mac operating system. Even better, he'd just been visiting at Apple, and he'd learned inside information on Mac OS X.
I'm sure you can see where I'm headed with this. After all the buildup, the guy wound up looking like an idiot. He might have been a good sales person, but he should never have been paraded out as a brilliant systems engineer.
Some of his more interesting contentions:
Please note that I'm not bashing Apple here. Apple does a lot of neat things, and Mac OS X is quite nifty. This was just another case of a glorified sales guy who took bad notes at a (semi-)technical sales briefing. Now, Microsoft paid this same sort of person to write an "I switched!" web page. As another Slashdot topic says, "It's funny. Laugh."
"Be Happy or Die." -- AoN
No it doesn't. Scroll down.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Since MS took the page down, take a look at Google's cache here
A PowerMac with dual 867Mhz G4, 4x72gb Ultra160 SCSI drives, a gig of RAM, Superdrive, and dual 17" flat-screen studio displays comes out to about $8000. A fair comparison would be really difficult without more information. However, I'll wager that your machine wasn't particuarly cheap either.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
There are some pretty nice Linux women here.
I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere, but here is google's cache of that page. I had to frob the url but it works.
peace
Gotta love it!
Original Microsoft page in all it's glory:
here it is
Make it a malt liquor. I want to be as clever and handsome as possible.
The Microsoft "Switch" page that was removed earlier today can be found in the Google cache at: Article at Google Cache The picture of the woman is not the author of the article, but just a clip art from: Girl Clipart For Sale That fact was posted in one of the Slashdot comments. ~Dan Lake
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:JmwQcVoG-ucJ: www.microsoft.com/insider/opsystems/windowsxp_setu p.asp+Windows+XP+gives+me+more+choices+and+flexibi lity&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Now Final Cut Pro on the other hand...
What a horrid little article.
Wow, that was bad. I personally loved when that fictional woman was bragging about Office having more features then Appleworks. Well, all I have to say is "duh." AppleWorks was designed to be a simple office productivity suite, not the huge beast that is MS Office.
Moreover, did Microsoft forget that they sell Microsoft Office for MacOS? And did they also forget that the Mac versions of Office (at least 98, 2001, and Office X) have typically had cooler features and a better interface then their Windows counter parts?
And, hey don't get me started on all of the free Open Source Productivity suites that have tons of features and read DOC and XLS files for free. I think Microsoft forgot about those as well.
Other things that Microsoft seems to have forgotten about include:
Microsoft develops a version of Internet Explorer for Mac OS complete with tons of Mac specific features.
Mozilla(netscape) has more features, and -actually- does more then IE has ever done.
Every browser on the face of the earth comes with a history and organizable favorites, bookmarks, etc
A lowend iBook will remain functional a hell of a lot longer then a lowend notebook running windows.
Wizards are horrible little things that should rot in a firry pit of hell. Users should never 'need' to look for a wizard for simple setup procedure. They are a crutch for poor interface design.
God I hate Windows.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I'll agree the Apple ads are kind of dumb, they have no substance, but look at what MS had up:
They didn't mention that both MS Office and Internet Explorer are available for the Mac, and in fact IE is the only browser that comes preinstalled. Also almost every review of Office v.X said it was better than the Windows version. Same is true of IE for Mac.
I wont even get into that Mozilla is every bit as fast as IE. ;)
This "switch ad" was just bogus. I guess that's why they pulled it! I'd wager someone at MS wrote the story and the photo of the woman was is just a stock photo. This is the kind of thing they pulled sending letters to newspapers and congressmen!
She also wrote:
Can't get much better than a PowerBook G4 if you ask me! Besides the fact that most best selling writers use Apple laptops.
MS ads are not more intelligent, they are less fluffy, but also less factual.
And Sara, we know OS X is better than XP! It does show more copying on MS' part... got to get that X in the name! :P
-- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol
The AP already picked up this story, and tracked down the marketing company hired to create this fake ad. The woman, Valerie G. Mallinson of Shoreline, Wash works for a public relations firm, Wes Rataushk & Associates Inc. Microsoft hired Rataushk to produce fake testimonials when their own research turned up no usable customers. Yahoo peoplefinder lists: Steve and Valerie Mallinson, (206) 367-1953, 2203 N 106th St, Seattle, WA 98133, if you want to call and ask her about the ad in question.
At 5foot3 and 200 lbs, I'm sure Valerie is not the woman in the stock photo.
No, NT has all the facilities for perfect user separation, ranging from private registry areas over home directories to group policies. It's the 3rd party software that's to blame here, and not Windows.