Microsoft Tries a "Switch" Campaign 1224
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 another ploy (Score:1, Interesting)
Here is the reverse, sort of: (Score:2, Interesting)
The Mold of Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
The added touches of this "person" being 5-foot-3 and her husband six feet, and the "Lexus we rented once," was predicted by Philip K. Dick in his short story The Mold of Yancy [google.com]. If you've read it, go read the Microsoft ad with an eye toward the similarity. It's creepy.
Missing the point (Score:4, Interesting)
"*Editor's Note: Now that we've successfully converted our writer to a Windows PC, we will be working on getting her to try a Pocket PC. Stay tuned for more developments!"
I think the better story would be "Bill forces last Mac user to switch!"
Switching... (Score:1, Interesting)
microsoft.com/switch
Hmmm.....
She's Also a Photodisc Model! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Welcome to Capitalism (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you're missing the point. It's not the strategy that's amusing, it's the fact that it's such a poor effort. Microsoft doesn't offer one reason to use XP that doesn't also exist in Mac OS X. Microsoft Office? They have that for OS X. Multi-user? Yeah, OS X has that. Etc, etc.
it's like an ad from Iraq's tourism industry trying to lure beach-goers away from Florida:
Sun? We have that. Sand? We have lots of that too!
This is almost as silly as Microsoft hosting the "we have the way out" anti-unix site on freebsd. but i digress...
Re:The Mold of Microsoft (Score:1, Interesting)
Is there any verification that the apple switchers aren't just made up names? If they aren't, its scary people would give that kinda stuff out (have you seen some of the websites where people are obsessed over the 'switchers'?).
Honestly, I take them both as fakes. Sure, apple did a better job with it, but the whole deal isn't anything special. Look at any industry, you'll see people market that there product is better than the competition for reasons A and C, but the competition markets that there product is better than the original for reasons B and D. Marketing is a load, and most slashdotters can see through the sludge.
This isn't anything special. Why is everyone up in arms about it? Just a story to insult the MS?
observation (Score:4, Interesting)
If I was an Apple user I would be encouraged by this bit of marketing. It implies that Microsoft is concerned about their image compared with Apple and is willing to violate this empirical rule.
Re:Welcome to Capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
From the botom of the article:
Editor's Note: Now that we've successfully converted our writer to a Windows PC, we will be working on getting her to try a Pocket PC. Stay tuned for more developments!
I'm pretty sure that what's going on here is that Microsoft found a freelance writer to write glowingly about XP in exchange for free hardwaree and OS. Similar to the old tactic of giving aluminum siding to a family for free so the neighbors can see it in action. 10 bucks says she's on the MS payroll. Also, in response to the posters above who remarked that she is so much better looking than the women in the Mac ads: I'll bet the picture shown is not the writer of the article.
Could be totally wrong on both counts, but that's my impression
Re:She's Also a Photodisc Model! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The Mold of Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
http://forums.macrumors.com/member.php?s=da33c2d0
Scroll down to Aaron Adam's post or Pgant's on the 2nd page.
Re:She's Also a Photodisc Model! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tell me you're kidding (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally, the TV spots are just a small part of the Switchers campaign. Check out apple.com/switch/stories [apple.com] sometime. You'll find dozens of emailed testimonials from real people identified only by their initials.
The answer to your question is yes. I believe the people featured in Apple's Switchers campaign are real. While I concede that it's possible that the whole thing campaign a big hoax, I think it would have been a lot harder for Apple to fabricate it than it would have been to simply find a couple dozen people who were willing to talk about their Macs on camera. The preponderance of evidence points to the conclusion that Apple is just letting people tell their own stories, while the preponderance of evidence is that Microsoft, in this case, isn't.
So to answer your last question: Apple is more honest.
Thanks for asking.
Re:I'm sticking with MS (Score:5, Interesting)
Check out Here [gettyimages.com]
Whee
Re:She's Also a Photodisc Model! (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Tell me you're kidding (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Welcome to Capitalism (Score:3, Interesting)
I know of a similar page you speak about. They compare linux servers to WindowsNT based OS's and provide bunch of examples which absolutely make no sense.
I have friends who are Microsoft zealots. They code in asp, use windowsXP and dismiss *nix as hobbyist's OS. I've had some pretty heated arguments with them on many different occasions, and they come up with the lamest excuses and examples why Windows based servers and IIS in particular are far more superior to *nix and apache based solutions. One notable point they try to make is that IIS is supported by a multi-billion dollar corporation and can be set up by pointing and clicking, as opposed to modifying
Don't get me wrong, I use Windows 2000 on 3 of my computers because frankly they get the job done on the desktop level. But when it comes to servers, Windows/IIS is a FisherPrice toy compared to BSD/apache. Believe me, I've tried to like IIS... It never clicked.
Re:She's Also a Photodisc Model! (Score:5, Interesting)
It sure looked like a photographer took the picture, didn't it? Notice the warmer fill light on one side of her face, no way that was just some snapshot.
Photodisc has a great search feature
Most of those goofy pictures you see of people talking or using their computer or something are stock photos.
Good ol' microsoft!
OH MY GOD this is funny... (Score:2, Interesting)
First, look at this
http://cache.gettyimages.com/thumb/AA046139.GIF
A stock photograph from Getty images, whe I used to work. Getty images is a chief rival of Corbis, which is owned my Bill Gates. This tell us many things, among them...
1. The 'Writer' is indeed a marketing fake.
2. They didn't even use an image from thier own collection.
no thanks, MS, I'm just fine thanks...
jason wiley
Re:observation (Score:2, Interesting)
the imdb story [imdb.com]
This is a joke... (Score:4, Interesting)
Frankly, I'd like to see a MAC formatted ZIP disk work instantly on a PC. I'd also like to see why the writer didn't compare Microsoft Office to Microsdoft Office v.X. I'll tell you why, v.X is in my opinion the best Office implementation at the moment. Also, why not compare IE 6 PC to IE on the MAC?
The whole thing is just laughable.
first they ignore you.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Tell me you're kidding (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Must be composite/fake (Score:1, Interesting)
As the IT support geek for an office of writers, this statement is a complete joke. Writers need a word processor they're not doing anything that requires loads of processing power. In fact, the best freelancers that we work with are using ancient machines (think 68040 or older Macs -- that's pre-PowerPC to the x86 crowd), and the best writer that we work with still sends in copy that has been typed (and the boss thought I was God Almighty when I came onboard and introduced her editorial assistant to a scanner and OCR). And while I'm being an old curmudgeon, how about those folks out there still using those old indestructible Tandy laptops that run on three "C" batteries? All writers need is a something that lets them bang keys. Case in point -- I just retired a PowerBook 150 with 4 MB of RAM, a 40 MB hard drive, and a grayscale screen and it ran WordPerfect 3.5 for Mac like a champ, which was all we needed it for. End of story.
-30-
Microsoft more faster New Technology is! (Score:2, Interesting)
Keeps Pace with New Technology
The open-source nature of Linux means that the company lacks a centralized strategy for keeping pace with emerging technologies and hardware. And that means Linux is typically much slower than Microsoft and Microsoft partners to consistently deliver the tools needed to stay current with new hardware requirements and new technologies.
I wondered in high school whether bullshitting could be a full time job. Perhaps I should work for Microsoft. Oh, just for fun type Unix or linux into Microsofts search engine to see what it comes up with.
Re:Linux Switch (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, we all know that the number of users using a tool is directly proportional to the quality of the tool, right?
---
"including speed of loading tables, program"
IE loads faster in a sense because it's integrated into the OS; the libraries are loaded when you boot your system. That can be seen as a good thing or a bad thing.
While I admit that Mozilla doesn't have the spunk at rendering as some other browsers do, you should try Phoenix.
---
"support"
For what? Bad HTML standards?
Name something Mozilla doesn't support that I'm going to miss on the web.
Have any Slashdotters switched from Mac to Win? (Score:2, Interesting)
She's not Real. Here's the URL of her photo (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:I'm sticking with MS (Score:3, Interesting)
What are the odds that they went to a Mac-using ad agency to get this done, and this is secret code to the smart people?
Re:to paraphrase (Score:5, Interesting)
Hear, hear. They can have some pretty absolute opinions about other OS's though, without ever having used them, or even seen them.
I've been a pretty avid alternativist for the last two decades. I used to be (still am in some ways) an Amiga nut. I dived into BeOS when it was new. I was an early adopter of Linux, and have had one or two BSD machines.
My father (without actually bothering to look at any of the machines for 10s) would always say "Give it up! There is no alternative! Windows has won! No-one will ever use anything else!"
Well, the last time Pops came over, I showed him my new flat-panel iMac. I just did some basic demoing, like showing him the zooming dock at the bottom, window shadows, speach recognition, and of course the fish in the background [serenescreen.com] (yes, any OpenGL screen saver can be run as a desktop background).
Response? We'll, he looked a bit shocked. Then he looked a bit flabbergasted. The he looked stunned for a while. Then he said "I want that in my computer".
At which point I explained "You can't have that in your computer. It's nigh impossible in Windows. But if you got a Mac..."
May be one more convert for the Gray Side.
Re:to paraphrase (Score:2, Interesting)
I know what you mean. Although I am a PC boy myself, I have used my friends' Macintosh products and test driven some in stores. My next machine will likely be a notebook and a powerbook [apple.com] is definitely high on the list of possibilities.
The displays are so nice. And I want i(Tunes|Photo|Movie|Pod without the hassle). I want the space age ergonomics. Very few PC notebooks have keyboards as nice as the powerbook ones. (The toshiba tecra comes to mind.)
And to think, Microsoft has gone proactively anti-apple and here I am reciting why I want a mac because of it.
Re:To all MS employees trolling today... (Score:2, Interesting)
Oddly enough (and the dude in the middle is admittedly odd), the technology section in [nytimes.com]
today's Times would beg to differ with you.
"our writer" can also mean... (Score:3, Interesting)
But it gets even more interesting. Maybe she is really a he (and perhaps not even a freelance writer at all), since it is "Don Funk" whose user folder appears to be used in the screenshot.
After they stopped laughing, our IT staff predicted that this page would be gone in 24 hours.
Feels like a Knowledge Base article (Score:2, Interesting)
I got the strangest feeling I was reading a Knowledge Base article when I looked at this page. The fact that "she" went into how to setup your ISP information step by step instead of saying, "... and setting up my email was as simple as falling down a flight of stairs..." decided it for me that this was a hoax.
I've read about M$ doing some sketchy stuff before, but this takes the taco.
Re:She's Also a Photodisc Model! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Compelling reason to switch to Linux/other Free (Score:5, Interesting)
Freedom from DRM.
So far, there is no DRM in Mac OS, and untill there is, that isn't a reason to switch.
Freedom to use the OS however you want to. I want to use my OS to get my daily work done. There isn't much beyond that that the OS has to do. This isn't really a clear argument, can you be more specific?
Freedom to tweak and change, even at code-level.
I rarely have the desire to do this. Most programs work perfectly fine for me, and for those that dont, I get an alternative program. Even still, this argument is only compelling for a minority of computer users, I believe the original poster's intent was compelling reasons for other people to switch.
Freedom to install the OS on any machine you want to without asking "Mother May I?"
Not quite. I can install it on any machine I want to, assuming that the machine is compatable with the OS hardware support. The main issue of course being that there are still seperate distros of Linux (PPC, x86, SPARC). When will we see a distro with all the nessesary code in one package, and a universal install?
Freedom from bullshit licenses and other nightmares.
I'll give you that one. But again, the argument could still be made that for most intents and purposes, Apple provides the same freedom to it's users.
Freedom from the vast majority of viruses and exploits.
Seems to me that that's a better argument to switch to mac than to linux.
Like I said, they're all very good reasons, but none of them are compelling to most users.
Re:Have any Slashdotters switched from Mac to Win? (Score:2, Interesting)
I still use my old wallstreet powerbook for just internet usage in my living room and an old power computing clone for my linux server (for web and ftp use).
I would love to run OSX on a G4 titanium powerbook, but until I can buy a souped up one for around $1600 or less I won't ever buy another Mac.
i hoped she used that $450 towards her XP pro (Score:3, Interesting)
lol.
yeah, we'll sell you this laptop for cheap, but battery life is gonna cost ya!
It's gone :( (Score:2, Interesting)
URL doesn't work anymore. Anyone have a mirror?
Re:So reply to the 'real' writer ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm sticking with MS (Score:5, Interesting)
Whether she does or not, it looks like Microsoft just pulled the page (or it got slashdotted). It seems they can no longer find it.
I guess Caroline Woodham (or her make believe twin) just got "fired". Or maybe her PC self destructed. Anyway, it has got to be one of the shortest Microsoft careers ever.
I feel sorry for the model in the picture, though. She signed a release that people could use the photo in general artwork, not that someone can make up stories about her personally. The price of a 72 dpi picture (assuming someone didn't just take it off their web site and cut off the top part with the light table and the company name) just doesn't cover something like that.
As for a company that feels it needs to hire fictional clip art switchers/editors, that's pretty sad. At least Apple uses (and hopefully pays) real people.
My favorite switchers tale is still the 1993 "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II". Man, when he switches, he switches big time. Just look at all them Macs.
"His return is near..." Godzilla 2000 trailer
G Countdown: 15 days (www.godzillaoncube.com)
Re:hahaha! (Score:3, Interesting)
The plus side being that Windows has shitloads more stuff on it than Mac. I can run LW on a Mac, but I'd forfeit a TON of plugins I need that were compiled for Intel.
Mirror (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:yeah right (Score:5, Interesting)
Advertisements may be obvious, but they can still have a kind of life to them. Judging from the responses (both positive and negative), the Apple "Switch" campaign seems to be pretty lively.
Even a cursory reading of the MS article shows that while they've downplayed the obviousness of the advertisement (and not very well, after all), they've also failed to imbue it with any sort of liveliness. It reads like a second-rate brochure for life insurance policies.
I've been told it's a lot like my posts.
Re:yeah right (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think that my "higher ups" at Microsoft would look too kindly on the fact that I bash MS's security regularly, spend a significant amount of time in Linux, and generally think of MCSE as meaning Micky-mouse Certified Suckers, Etc. (Note I'm saying "generally", as in the majority, not as in all.)
My "kind views" of MS are only when I compare them to Apple.
Apple's selling the Mac-buying public a bridge, and virtual one at that. MS's claims, while quite often faulty and fabricated, at least have a bit more truth than the company that is trying to sell OS X as a finished product. I love the concept of OS X, but it is NOT a finished product. Apple is selling slower hardware at higher prices, running a version 1 operating system. Microsoft is selling an established OS that has more options than you can shake a stick at. Do I love them? No. But their sales literature doesn't smell quite as much like a red herring.
-Sara
Sorry, is that page for or against Microsoft? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, one does wonder... the advertiser may have been worried about whether the thing actually died in the saddle or not, but the original Microsoft page that this SlashDot story is about says (used to say):
...which to me looks like she'd probably have to uninstall XP to stop it from crashing.
So... if this is Microsoft's new, fantastic, reliable, easy-to-use replacement for OS/X, why did our anonymous but very pretty switcher have to spend time sysadminning her brand new toy? And why did Microsoft publish that point? They're basically confirming every Windows user's constant nightmare: that the system might suddenly and without obvious cause irretrievably screw itself.
When was the last time you had to remove and reinstall KMail to get it working?
How Microsoft has made my life easier (Score:2, Interesting)
And before any of your even think about saying "That's what you get for pirating," I'll have you know this was a legal copy. I didn't pay full retail for it, but that's the benefit of going to a school owned by Microsoft. XP is worth the $10 I paid for it, but not much more.
Re:Sorry, is that page for or against Microsoft? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that was a joke or something, though I haven't seen it.
Outlook does kind of blow for some things, but for sucking so bad it still doesn't really give me any problems, unless you count it being totally fucking worthless for newsgroups. I don't even bother using it for that.
Incidently, I still have the majority of my e-mail since about 97 on this system. It's been brought forward upgrade after upgrade.
Maybe I'm just lucky.
Switch (Score:1, Interesting)