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Microsoft Wants to Project "Cool" Image
rocketjam writes "C-Net is reporting that Microsoft is working to get their products placed in popular TV shows like Fox's "24" and HBO's "The Wire" as part of a push from executive Jim Allchin called 'cool form factor'. Like MacDonald's recent hip-makeover marketing efforts, Allchin wants to engender a hip, consumer brand image for the company which is largely perceived as an enterprise software company. Microsoft would like to capture some of the cachet that Apple Computer has among the fashionable and Hollywood tech elite."
If they try, they'll just end up like an embarrassing dad - hip and trendy, age 45. Thinks he's the coolest dancer on the dancer floor...
Programming with a dose of satire: http://www.SoftwareReality.com
and isn't uncommon for any sort of brand to do this (Gateway had (still has) a deal with ER to have their machines prominently used). I really don't care either way. I just want movies to semi-accurately portray computers (although I didn't care for it, Matrix Reloaded did score marks for this) as compared to a lot of previous efforts (too many to mention). So if they do it from cmd.exe or sh, as long as it doesn't shake my ability to enjoy the movie, I'm fine with it.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Apple have appeared, without payment or request, in thousands of productions. From 24 to Seinfeld, to just about any stock photography that has a laptop in it, it's Apple Apple Apple all the way. I think it's curious Microsoft need to -pay- to get their products in this same position.
:P
And as much as I'm a mac lover, it's amazing how LITTLE benefit it's done Apple. What's our market share now?
It's just trying to get the street cred it craves.
It's important to make sure it doesn't get it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make sure it doesn't. This message will self-destruct in 15 months.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"But Microsoft makes very little hardware.
;)
Apple's cool comes from its superb hardware lineup. Nobody would choose any other laptop given the choice of an Apple powerbook and an equal PC one. The same holds for every other item they produce. The G5s look stunning and are too quiet to tell if they are on.
Everybody who sees an iPod wants one, and they work fine with Windows.
Microsoft con't itself up its credibility by showing Windows, it has to be in a cool computer, they need to team up with a Hardware manufacturer. Alienware do nice cases...
Apple's OS might be great but how often do you really see what its doing on TV. Just a snap of a guy with a computer (albeit a tiny, thin laptop with a glowing apple on it), or a loading bar while the MacOS takes down Alien hardware through a non existant interface.
Hmm. I for one think The Blue Screen Of Death deserves a guest shot on "Dead Like Me" :)
This reminds me of the "Windows ME Introduction Video" that showed several extremely happy people using "digital media" technology, "recovering from problems easily" (kid with hammer attacks keyboard), and experiencing the power of "home networking." I really love the part where Dad shoots a video of the wife and kid and sends it spinning around an animated globe to Grandma's computer. And despite all the marketing hype, all the non-geeks I know who have used WinME universally agree that it sucks.
Besides, most of the people I know who are clueless about computers hate computers, and nothing will ever change that. Not marketing, and not attempts at making software easier to use. And such people wouldn't even notice the latest toy from HP on their favorite TV show.
Apple makes physical objects with a distinctive look. The product just has to appear for a second. Nobody has to interrupt the flow of dialogue to say anything about it.
What's Microsoft going to do? Ask them to show people booting up their PC so that the Windows logo takes over the screen and that musical sound plays?
Have cool twenty-somethings joke about how to get rid of that obnoxious Clippy?
This is just a dumb upper-management idea. Microsoft doesn't make the kind of products for which product placement works.
Furthermore, Apple's appeal to a certain group is directly connected to their willingness to make strong, emphatic design statements. You may hate the way a Mac looks or you may love it, but you can't be indifferent to it. Other PC makers may take tentative steps in making their boxes charcoal instead of beige, or making the front plastic bulge a bit instead of being perfectly flat, but they're not willing to be emphatic--and neither is Microsoft.
Contrast the Apple "switcher" ads--which I personally hated--with the bland, characterless attempt Microsoft made to do the same thing. You knew the Apple switchers were real people. And it came as no surprise to find that the Microsoft "switchers" were stock photographs.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
If it deserved it, it would have it already. Personally I don't see it working, for two reasons: 1. Mass-market by definition cannot be cool. Cool requires a degree of exclusivity. 2. Microsoft's philosophy is "pile em' high sell 'em cheap, and fix the bugs eventually". Again, this is the anti-thesis of cool. Basically MS lack the perfectionist drive. I'm not making either of these points to knock MS as a company - they're very succesful at what they do and make a ton of cash. It's just that what do is incompatible with being "cool". Edward
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
You're slightly wrong here. They have the perfectionist drive in spades. It's just that they are trying to perfect making money, not perfect making product.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"It's just trying to get the street cred it craves. It's important to make sure it doesn't get it.
Thankfully, Microsoft's success in having become 'the establishment' will make it very hard for them to acquire street cred. That sort of perception tends to attach to rebels, free-thinkers and high performers, not monolithic institutions. While it's true that MS itself has shown breathtaking contempt for the law, using their software is not going to make you a rebel without a cause; it's going to make you a sheep without an alternative.
to Microsoft on this. Their problem is that, in 99% of the times, a windows box looks like ass, and TV/Movies are all about visuals. Apple has got them beat, beat, beat. It would need shots of the desktop, and, unless somebody in the movie is USING the computer, that won't be easy...
Sorry Billy-boy, but you must get a cool box first before somebody thinks MS is cool.
Man, the subject line says it all. They're going to waste massive amounts of money trying to be the cool kids. It's not gunna happen... 40 year old logic in advertising and whatnot seem to think just make it "xtreme" and it's good to go. I'm waiting to see Microsoft team up with some hardware manufacturer and come out with computers with skateboards plastered all over them or something. Their new slogan: Microsoft; KICKING YOU RIGHT IN THE FACE SINCE 1988 Meh. This is bad as Dell trying to make "cool" gaming computers.
Yup -- the good guys always use Macs...and on the Mac mailing lists, some of the 24 geeks (I love that show...and occasionally look at the 24 spoiler sites...not sure if I'm at their level though). But several threads popped up when Nina started using the Dell in the first season...she started off using a Mac...they believed it was symbolic of her gradual move to the dark side.
Sooo...knowing Macs are used by the good guys, why shouldn't M$ go for the side of evil. Evil has a LOT more money and there are a lot more folks on that side of things than would be willing to be good because being good means making choices that most folks just really wouldn't want to take on...
M$ need to make a DeathStar PC. Something that looks evil incarnate. Something that says Bad Motherfucker on the side. Something that a goody goody wouldn't use. Something that impresses upon you that its YOUR job to keep it up to date, because their ain't no hand holding out in the fronteers and virus protection ain't our concern.
Microsoft needs to embrace its position in the world and stop trying to run to Jobs every few years to ask him for a little Karma. Microsoft needs to impress upon folks that they are not the best, but if you fucking want to get anywhere, you will pay the fucking $300 a year to keep your PC up to date. Its racketteering...but done right, they can do it -- as they are now -- but make those of us out there that feel we'd been slipped the Anal Ease and know the worst is yet to come, know that this is how it is, it might not be how it should be, but if you don't like it, you are welcome to join the pansies using wussie OSs like X.
I would respect them far more if they did this...maybe I'd not be typing this on a cute little iBook that always attracts chicks in the coffee houses but negates any cool points I might have with hard core geeks (even though if you looked at my screen, I'm probably in terminal SSH'd somewhere else)...
No. Brute force and ignorance, every time. "We want a cool image; find out how much that'll cost, and buy it."
Unfortunately, so far, it's a policy that's mostly worked. And if they spend enough in the right places, I fear it'll work again. What does that say about society?
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Bleah, that's just silly.
An Opteron can clock no *higher* than 2GHz, no different than a G5. Architecturally an Opteron is very similar to a G5, more similar to a G5 than a P4, except that the G5 has a more efficient SIMD unit.
An Athlon64 does clock higher than a G5 so on a basic Apples to apples comparison will perform higher... but an Athlon64 also cannot be put into a dual system, and still has a weaker SIMD unit, so it all pans out.
Every system has a merit, and the mere existence of competition drives performance up. Without AMD, Intel would not drive the P4 nearly so hard. Now without Intel+AMD, IBM would not drive the PPC 970 so hard, and vice versa. Everyone has a role to play, and dismissing one of the actors only does your own party a disservice. Competition serves the consumer and customer, not slavish loyalty or fanboyism.
I *welcome* every advance in the PC world because it drives Apple harder to compete. In reflection, if you prefer the AMD, you should similarly welcome every innovation and release from Apple and Intel to drive along AMD, or Apple and AMD to drive along Intel.
GPL Deconstructed
>Since when was a massive omni-mega corp ever cool?
Take a look at anything that was cool in the past 20 years and either it is or it eventually had a big corporation behind it.
Look at any popular music group/singer. Big corp behind them.
Look at Nike/Adidas.
Look at any hip/cool tv show or movie.
Lots of sports teams or events have big corporations behind it.
Can M$ buy cool? Yes and its been done many times before.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
improving the OS
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Quite a lot of Apple's "cool factor" among the "fashionable and Hollywood tech elite", (especially from the marketing point of view) comes from the instant recognition of Apple products.
If you see a silver wide screen laptop with a little grey apple on the back, you know you're looking at a G4 powerbook. You can be almost certain it's running Mac OS X. You know what you're looking at - the hardware, the software, what the machine is good at.
That doesn't happen with PC's. There could be anything in that box.
With Apple releasing both hardware AND software, they have the ability to create products that consumers can instantly recognise (that's an iBook, that's an iMac, etc), and know what to expect from them.
This has allowed Apple to "engender a hip, consumer brand image" that MS do NOT have (and are going to struggle gaining).
Stev.I can't beleive you're saying Office and Windows, with their 80% profit margin, are sold "cheap".
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Not true.
What do you think the RIAA is doing? They mass market music on MTV and such to make it desirable, then they sell CD's at inflated prices at such a level that only those of a certain economic level with the disposable can buy them, maintaining exclusivity and thus ensuring "coolness".
Marketing: The end-result of 50 years of Psychoanalytical research + Greed.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
You've hit the nail on the head. MS wants to be every image at some point or another. Big Reliable Bank Partner. No wait... SupaDope Xbox playa. No wait... Your Friendly Neighbourhood PC weenie. No wait....
They can't have it all ways. As someone pointed out above, while Microsoft can rent cool, they can never, ever be cool. Its just not the way it works.
Like trying to pick your own nickname. Apple became cool years ago and that's what they are still. MS, much more powerful financially, cannot claim underdog status, and no one in their right mind can associate themselves with a global behemoth like that.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
You people are confusing the appearance of coolness with actual coolness. Microsoft is purchasing the appearance of coolness, which many people accept as cool, since they don't know any better. They are not purchasing actual coolness, which usually involves no money changing hands. They don't want actual coolness tho, they want people to buy their products, which the appearance of coolness is much more effective at doing.
You paint a garbage can platinum, and it's still just a garbage can. --Nikki Sixx
Money not found! A)bort, R)etry, D)eclare Bankruptcy
At first read your post sounds like a comedy sketch invloving Henry Winkler.
But "appearness of coolness" = "actual coolness" to the general public and thats all that really matters.
Does Apple have the "appearness of coolness" or are they "actualy cool"? What is the EXACT determining factor? Is it a subjective factor?
If you don't think something is "actually cool" are you right or are you wrong? How would you know?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Instead of spending loads of $$ to project an image, why not spend it towards FIXING THE BUGS and SECURITY HOLES in their stuff?
In short: Isn't improving the actual product(s) more important than seeing some cookie-cutter TV star using them?
They can put all the TV spin they want on their OS's and apps. It won't do them one iota of good if said OS and apps remain in their current state, security-wise (which means they're about as secure as a block of Swiss cheese).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
- lipstick on a pig is still a pig with lipstick...
- screenwriters and other industry hacks know the best platform and products to use - and they aren't from the software monopoly...
- i wouldn't be surprised to see consumer and corporate anger regarding the software monopoly become even more prevalent on the large and small screen...
- the Evil Empire can spend all the money in its coffers on improving its image, but any effort won't remove the past or erase its evil history...
You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that MS avoids sqaushing bugs due to costs. I don't believe this is the case. They are willing to live with bugs because they do not directly affect their bottom line.
/.ers see MS's problem as one of its commercial nature and monopolistic ambitions to dominate the world etc. While I agree with those criticisms, the essential nature of their problem from my POV as a potential customer is this features-not-bug-fixes philosophy of theirs. From a strictly profit-making, shareholder-value POV, I can see their point, but from an end-user perspective it does make me despise them and their slimy make-a-fast-buck used car salesman ethics.
If MS decides to increase their budget for a particular application, it will be to add features. Features tend to add even more bugs (and bloat), but they are great for marketing and hence sales. Features directly add value. Bugfixes do not. People (naively) expect their software to work as advertised. Customers don't want to have to pay extra for the company to fix something that was never supposed to have been broken.
Commercial customers with tech-savvy sys-admins can be a problem here. This is the only reason that MS ever developed the NT series of OSes. At least there MS paid at least some attention to reliability and bugfixes. But the point is that it was only because they felt they had no choice. Below a certain level of reliability Linux/Unix would just be too tempting an alternative for this market segment.
I realize that many
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Actually, I would say Cool requires a degree of apparent exclusivity. Nike (to use the same example as everyone else here) is "Cool" but is also heavily mass-marketed. A product is cool when you have managed to engender the appearance of exclusivity in your target market. I see people with Nikes everywhere: the things aren't particularly special or exclusive but the people that buy them seem to think they are. Now can they not be? Michael Jordan wears them! Whatever you think about Nike, that was one phenomenally successful marketing campaign.
... "whoa, cool." Apple has successfully made themselves into something of the Rolex of PC manufacturers. As an aside, I find it ironic that Apple Computer, whose early products gave millions of people their first taste of computer power in defiance of IBM and the mainframe world, has taken this elitist road. Probably it was the only way they could survive, given the boneheaded mistakes they made years ago.
Apple Macintoshes, on the other hand, achieve their coolness by actually being exclusive. While Apple is a major corporation, their share of mouse-wielding eyeballs pales in comparison to Microsoft's. Consequently, Macs are exclusive for the simple reason that there just aren't that many out there. Just knowing someone with a Mac is unusual, whereas it's hard to find someone that doesn't use a Windows box.
Apple plays heavily and deliberately into this, by carefully positioning themselves to appeal to those that prefer to have something distinctive. This only works if most other people can't have it, and it helps if your "cool" product costs more too. And if it works better and actually looks cooler than the rest
Even so, I think that Americans also appreciate the underdog aspect to Apple's efforts (and Linux, and all others that are competing with Microsoft). That is another part of being cool: buying and supporting something that isn't mainstream from someone that is struggling against all odds. Microsoft is the J.R. Ewing of the computer world (everybody loves to hate them), and an illegal monopoly to boot, and they will have a hard time ever convincing the public that they are an underdog.
So, yes. I agree that the public perceiving Microsoft as being cool is farfetched at this point. On the other hand, given the public's ability to swallow, well, pretty much anything that has enough advertising dollars behind it I wouldn't say that it couldn't happen. Microsoft sure has the dollars. And if they can manage to convince the buying public that your average Dell or HP/Compaq box is "cool", they will have pulled off something never before recorded in the annals of marketing history.
Microsoft: Where do we want you to go today?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Notice that none of the shows mentioned are shown live. If they get a BSOD, they just do another take. The viewers never see a Windows crash, no matter how crappy the OS is.
Remember, image is everything, and it's cheaper to make the OS look stable on TV than it is to actually make it stable in real life.
Rank Presidents by th
New MS corporate themesong: "Pretty fly for a white Guy" by Offspring.
Seriously though, Apple already has the "cool" image MS wants to take. They are in most of the movies and look how much marketshare it got them? The only possible explanation for this is that someone up top is going though a midlife crisis or soemthing.