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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."
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!"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.
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.
Some things are "cool" for no other reason that they run counter to the mainstream. Apple has a throng of devotees partially because they aren't Microsoft.
Add to this the fact that Apple produces kick-ass products and you can see why they remain cool. They've demonstrated that they aren't a passing phase.
Microsoft can pay all of the money in the world and still not (and won't) buy that kind of following.
Plus, you don't see Apple pushing the issue with DRM and all of that other bullshit. Once again they are counter (cool) to the mainstream (dud).
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.
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?
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.