Microsoft's anti-Apple weapon: Seinfeld

Stephen Withers
Friday, 22 August 2008 02:53

Opinion and Analysis

Anyway, it seems that Microsoft is going to drop $300 million on the campaign, and that company chairman Bill Gates will appear alongside Seinfeld.

In a leaked memo to Microsoft employees last month, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said "In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. But there is no doubt that Apple is thriving. Why? Because they are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete, while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to the end-to-end experience. Today, we're changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no compromises."

Maybe it would have been wiser to bring that change into being first?

Ballmer also said the company must "Drive end user excitement for our products." That makes sense, as end user excitement has been in relatively short supply in recent years, and the long midnight queues for new versions of Windows have been largely superseded by queues for the opening of new Apple Stores.

But can someone explain to me how ads featuring a comedian that peaked a decade ago is going to provide excitement? Couldn't Microsoft have found someone more 2008 than 1998?