Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft PR Rep is the Switcher
Here's a followup to our
earlier story
about Microsoft's "inverse switch" campaign. The AP tracked down the switcher and spoke with her:
she's an employee at a Microsoft public relations firm but says she actually did switch from Mac to Windows. Microsoft's
page
is still 404 (but Google's
cache
still works).
The interesting part to me is that the AP "tracked Mallinson by examining personal data hidden within documents that Microsoft had published with its controversial ad." Hmmmmmm.
(Kudos to obidonn, the first to
demonstrate
the use of a stock photo, which piqued interest in this story.
As of noon EDT Oct. 15, other
stock
photos
are still being used in anonymous Microsoft "testimonials.")
How do we know the Anonymous Poster isn't an employee of Linux and is just trying to discredit their biggest competitor?
Lies, FUD, bad software (let's not get started), breaking the law... Where does it end!?
Microsoft have so much egg on their face that this they're starting to look like that nasty chick in a cheap porno!
People still trust these assholes?
Why bother.
I remember this same thing happening with the antitrust trial. Soon dead people are going to be writing in to say that they switched from Mac to Windows.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
But on topic, if they tracked her down, how 'bout a real photo of this person? Just for comparison's sake.
It looks like MS is trying to do a "save my face" operation here by spinning the story by (of course) a MS PR person.
I went and immediately threw my g4 into a dumpster and bought an e-machine with xp after I saw that ad.........it was so powerful and convincing.
I think Microsoft just wants to ignore this until it goes away. Further actions that would end up in the news would not be in their best interest. By tomorrow most people will have forgotten about it, except the thousands of slashdot users that will make references to it anytime a MS article is posted for the next 2 years.
Clearly not a candidate for googlewhacking. The combination gives about 1300 hits.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Hi, my name is Valerie G. Mallinson and I work for a Microsoft PR firm.
One day I asked my boss for a new video camera for my Mac. He said "Remember, your paycheck comes from Microsoft, let's switch you for our new marketing campaign!"
So I switched.
And then my boss said "Hey, Microsoft wants to tell the world that you switched, but you're no prettier than those people Apple used. We wish you looked BETTER than Apple people."
And so they used some stock photos to give me a make over.
There's been plenty of people that switched from Apple to Windows, they're just too embarrassed to publicly admit their mistake.
No one is claiming the intelecual property rights on stupidity ....
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Daughter: "Mommy, did you have your 15 minutes of fame?"
Valerie: "Yes, honey."
Daughter: "Did you like it, mommy?"
Valerie: "No, honey."
Daughter: "Why?"
Valerie: "It was for Microsoft."
The best part of the article:
"A spokeswoman from Apple would not comment"
Yeah - because she was still cleaning up all of the millk that she laughed through her nose.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
The ramifications of this are astounding, imagine if this sort of thing is going on in other industries. You know those housewives who give testimonials about the effectiveness of washing powder? The fast cars that are guaranteed to improve your sex appeal? How can we trust anything we see in advertising anymore?
"Fire another round, corporal."
"But sir... we're running out of feet."
-pyrrho
Do you think that M$ gets pissed that 95% of their traffic for web marketing programs comes from slashdot?
According to this site, she was helping this guy put together PocketPC solutions for use on his Africa biking trip. Sounds like she was a little more in the MS fold than the article said. I'm surprised she even still used Macs, being a PocketPC "solutions troubleshooter" and all!
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
I hope you can't sleep at night, because I know I don't!
--sdem
Yes, it's true. I like the Menuet Operating System enough to change my whole computing world around.* Here's the bottom line: Menuet gives me more opportunities to write 32-bit assembly code. It's about more and better...
I can read my files, I can write my files, I can even write to video memory. To my surpise, the process of switching was as easy as all the Menuet OS marketing hype had promised. I was up and running as fast as I could format the floppy, Girl's Scouts Honor taken. First, let me tell you more about why I converted...
I'm an assembler geek. All those high-level abstractions found in other operating systems are for pansy-assed sissies. I want an OS that required that I coded my own TCP/IP stack before I coded a web browser. In assembler. Menuet delivered.
I discover more treats daily. For example, I have to reverse engineer Microsoft's .doc file format if I want to implement a word processor whose data files can be infected with viruses. It will be an ongoing process, but I'm thrilled so far.
*Editor's Note: Now that we've successfully converted our writer to using Menuet OS, we will be working on getting her to try writing a Befunge interpreter for it! Stay tuned for more developments!
I can see it now...
Quick fade into rocket taking off. Cut to two 70's crash test sedans in a head-on collision. Horizontal wipe to atomic bomb detonating. Crossfade to fat guy taking a cannonball in the stomach. Star wipe to garish orange screen with Microsoft logo and "Where do you want to go today?" tagline. All done to the tune of cheap, generic classical music.
In a strangely Microsoftian twist, this'd all be done with iMovie, which would be revealed on Slashdot a few weeks later. The ad would be immediately pulled.
SIGFEH
I hope they'll do it, I really do. Apple I mean. It's obvious:
"Microsoft? Hell, they can't even find enough real people to do their ads, they had to dredge up an employee!"
From the article:
"I am a freelance writer; I demand the best in mobile computing."
But if you work for Microsoft PR, you can't be freelance now, can you?
Perhaps she was misquoted:
"I am writing promotion materials for Freelancer, a game which will demand the best in computing hardware"
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I mean, look at the difference:
Apple: spends the better part of a year looking for interesting, off-beat, photogenic people. Then they read hundreds of emails. They hand-pick a bunch of folks and pay money to fly them out, coach them, then tape them. They put the ads on nationwide TV.
Microsoft: Somebody at Microsoft's PR firm picks up the phone and says "Hey, remember that writer, Valerie? And remember how the screen on her Mac Centris 610 finally died and she got that Windows laptop? .. What's that? .. Yeah that was funny.. though I probably I did the same thing the first time I used a CD-ROM .. But anyway, track her down and give her $500 to finish some copy for our new campaign. I've already got most of it written.. .. what?.. No, just put a stock photo like usual .. okay .. bye!"
How easy! That's why Apple will always be a "niche" player. They give a shit about stuff like this. Like the guy in college who actually wrote all his lab reports while everybody else just copied one from last year.
"Look at the pretty colors"
"It doesn't lock up as much as previous versions."
"Look at the pretty colors"
This may have been pointed out already, but Microsoft Word 10.0 (the version stamped in the ShowOffYourSkills.doc file), is the Mac OS X version. So, apparently, she wrote this piece on a Mac.
I love this world.
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
As a side note, I think some of you Slashdotters agree that you'd be more than willing to go "biplatform" if Macs weren't so expensive... There's a $199 Wal-Mart PC for the curious Mac users, where's the $199 Mac for curious PC users?
Same place they sell the $12,000 Mercedes Benz.
-- thinkyhead software and media
microsoft fabricating their news? I'm shocked. SHOCKED!
Steve "Monkey Man" Balmer makes a very compelling argument. I'm switching.
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~jgg221/
See Balmer like never seen before.
I want that job!
Boss: Johnson! What are you doing?
Jonhson: Reading Slashdot, sir!
Boss: Good! I want your report on it by 5:00 tonight. And for the love of god, stop trolling those newbies!
char sig[120] = "\0"
Monday October 9, 2:04 pm ET
REDMOND, WA, Oct. 9
MS Mac User Converter®. MS Mac User Converter® is a product that converts a Macintosh® user
to MS Windows XP® user. "Our internal tests has been more successful than we had expected," said
Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft®. "If we can successfully convert all Macintosh® users to MS
Windows XP®, we're going to dominate 96% of the desktop market." Ballmer said. "Next step is to
convert all the Linux® users, but we still have some problems that needs to be solved. Linux® users
tend to be tougher to convert." Ballmer said.
Microsoft® can now add MS Mac User Converter® to their already successful list of innovations,
such as:
- MS Windows®
- MS Excel®
- MS Word®
- MS Powerpoint®
- MS DOS®
Microsoft® clearly shows the world that they're ahead of their competitors. "None of the competitorshave been able to launch a product like MS Mac User Converter®. This strengthens Microsoft®'s
position on the market" said Blackie Lawless, industry analyst for Gartner Dataquest's Software
Industry Research group®.
Maybe M$ should become B$?
you know, with all their troubles with security, patches, linux, anti-trust trials, and everything, they just don't have the time to find people who have benefitted using their products. i mean, come on, there must be one.
surely, you can cut them some slack. ballmer is up late at night thinking of more ways he can attack linux/open source. with 40 billion in the bank, they just can't aford to do the necessary research and investigation. give them a break will you.
i'm sure there are plenty of people who'll testify that they learned how to program using "Learn Visual Basic" and are now working at a major software company.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Ignoring it must work, 'cause gee, who remembers Microsoft 'Bob'?
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
"All the Mac hardware--including my printer, broadband cable, Zip drive, and Palm handheld--works perfectly with my Windows-based PC."
blah blah blah....
"The New Connection Wizard then guided me through the setup of my Internet connection for browsing the Web."
Hey!! I want to dial into my cable provider too. Does XP actually let me do that???
...you're trying to lie. Would you like some help? ;)
J-Log: Journalism News, Media Views
From what I have seen of Microsoft's PR mania I would actually be surprised if they could find someone in Western Washington that wasn't a Microsoft PR person.
Don't worry, the "amateur sleuths" from Slashdot are right on top of it! Get your detectives' caps and your magnifying glasses, gentlemen!
Kinda makes you feel like the Hardy Boys, doesn't it?
I knew MS was bad at designing software, but it looks like they can't even be orginal at designing an ad campaign...
"A spokeswoman from Apple Computer would not comment"
the mental image I get is from someone laughing so hard she CAN not comment.
Check out the bottom of the story--
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Yahoo members, you can mod this one up!!!
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Yeah, I can just see tomorrow's version of this story:
""The AP tracked down the switcher and spoke with her: she's an employee at a Microsoft public relations firm, but she says she actually did switch from Mac to Windows after MS offered her free hardware, and threatened the PR firm with loss of contract in the event she contradicted their fake story.
After threats of termination of job, and physical harm against her family, Mallison relented and agreed to corroborate the article."
-- james
Wow, I that artical made me laugh -so- hard. Does Microsoft have ANY shame?
;)
It's as if Microsoft's shamelessness was so huge that I can't single out a witty smart-a** comment to toss up here. My brain doesn't quite know which was funnier, the stock Getty Images, the 8 year old kid that can write at a college level, the woman who works for MS PR, the fact that anyone would find a Windows box easier to use.
I'm going to archive that google cache and print it up for my "Wall of Shame" at work. The *nix geeks will love it
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Switch to Windows, more Microsoft employees chose it than any other brand!
KFG
It's appeared on BBC News now, and there's a link back to /. too. Is this a first? Are they trying to give Slashdot a taste of its own Slashdotting medicine? :-)
--
Karma: Chameleon (you come and go)
Actually... the Temporal Billenium Timeline Act of 2533 _does_ make time travel illegal for the purposes of copyright :)
This BBC News report claims:
"...the picture of the woman used to illustrate the story was a stock image from the Getty Library and unlikely to be that of a real person." (emphasis mine)
I hope she doesn't have an inferiority complex already, because this kind of talk really won't help...