Microsoft Switcher Ads: Part 2

burgburgburg writes "We all recall Microsoft's last attempt to emulate the Apple Switch ads. Well, it seems they're at it again. MacNN reports that Microsoft has sent out emails to those who have recently registered MS products, looking for candidates for their 'Sensible Solutions' campaign, which will 'highlight computer professionals that have recently converted from Apple Computer products to Microsoft based systems.' Do you qualify? You must be 'a US resident with a minimum of 3 years experience as a computer professional. You must have used an Apple Computer product and a Microsoft based system as part of your work'. So when does it just stop being the sincerest form of flattery and just become utter, pathetic laziness?"

Comments

Maybe it just works

[doomdog]

Why insist on calling it laziness? Maybe the switcher ads just work -- and it's always good sense to copy what is known to work well...

If Microsoft knows the ads are working for Apple, they'd be stupid not to use them themselves....

I actually met a reverse switcher today.

[Hawthorne01]

Went to the local Apple store, and at the Genius Bar there was a man dejectedly putting a brand-new 15" TiBook back into his briefcase. The websites he visits are all optimized for Windows and the software he uses daily (he's a financial planner) comes in Windows-only (and yes, he tried Virtual PC, to no avail). He's selling his TiBook and going back to Windows. The lack of software I can almost understand, but companies that refuse to make their websites accessible and usable to anything other than WIndows IE are demonstrating either major ignorance on customer service, a blatant disregard for standards, or both.

Re:I actually met a reverse switcher today.

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

The websites he visits are all optimized for Windows

This is going to change fast, thanks to Safari. Whenever a page looks incorrect or doesn't function in Safari, click the little bug icon in the upper-right corner, and it pops up a dialog where you can send feedback directly to Apple's Safari team. It can optionally include a screenshot of the page.

Trust me, if enough people report problems with the same site, Apple WILL figure out a way to fix it. Safari has already improved dramatically in the beta version from last month to the one released this week.

Anyway, I too have been frustrated by web pages that are optimized for Windows, but thanks to Safari, and also thanks to standards-compliant browsers like Mozilla/Netscape 7, things are finally starting to change.

Re:I actually met a reverse switcher today.

[haeger]

This is going to change fast, thanks to Safari. Whenever a page looks incorrect or doesn't function in Safari, click the little bug icon in the upper-right corner, and it pops up a dialog where you can send feedback directly to Apple's Safari team. It can optionally include a screenshot of the page.

Now this would be a killer app for Mozilla-like browsers. Whenever something doesn't look right, You can popup a dialog with a screenshot and some text explaining that the page is "broken" in some way.

Not many people can be bothered to take a screenshot, start a mail-client, write a letter explaining what the problem is, mail the letter and screenshot to "www.broken-site.com".

If 90% of this is already done and all the user had to do was to provide a name and where to send the complaint, I bet we'd see a lot of changes in the web-world.

"Would You FIX the F*CKING page already? We get 500 screenshots a day and it's wrecking havoc in our mailserver"

Problem moved from the person doing the browsing to the person writing bad html.

.haeger