Low Blow from Mac
I don’t mind a bit of Windows bashing, even the odd bit of Mac bashing they both deserve it now and then. However the latest commercial from Mac in their now famous Mac Vs PC series is a bit of a low blow has Apple looking a little silly.
For a marketing giant like Mac to be calling out Microsoft on their advertising expenditure or the reasons for it is the pot calling the kettle black in my opinion. Not only that I think Mac is clutching at straws in relation to the content of the ad. That is Vista is crap so you should be spending money on fixing that rather than advertising.
First up now that I have been running Vista for near on 4 months now I think I am entitled to have an opinion about it. Honestly, I like it. I am not one of these “frustrated” PC users that Mac seem to think are out there in droves. In fact I make up one of three hosts of this show that use Vista in one form or another and both Keith and Cait don’t mind Vista either.
I have not had issues running software, finding drivers or anything else that I might want to do and I am a geek. For the average user Vista might actually be a better choice than XP. The security is better, doing everyday things is simple and lets face it, it does look a lot better.
That said Vista has had issues and people were and maybe still are frustrated with those issues. Personally I am yet to come across one. However, I think many of the initial problems with Vista, at least the glaringly obvious and worst have been addressed.
So what does a big company with a reasonable advertising budget do when they think they have a product that is worth taking a second look at do? Advertise… and they can hardly be slammed by anyone for doing the same thing that Mac, Nike, Coke or any other huge company would do. In fact they would be stupid for not doing it. So it hardly a strong campaign looking at the Mac side of things to have a go at it. It all seems a bit juvenile and a simplistic ad that flies in the face of the supposed sophisticated ideal that Mac usually portrays.
I am not Apple bashing here, but in my opinion the Mac Vs PC thing is getting a bit old and they are finding it hard to come up with decent material. It is starting to show in the ads. Sure, even I found them witty and humorous initially, but it is starting to lose that appeal and getting like a school kid chucking rocks and calling names.
Apple I know your better, this time I think your looking a little dumb. I will probably never do this again; but I am going to quote from a YouTube comment and it pretty much sums it up (strangely enough):
“Apple is all about superficial and advertising so its odd for them to make a retarded commercial like this.”
"I Want To Be a Celebrity"
Buy at 
Yep - Vista might be fine for a home user…but that’s not where Microsoft sell the majority of their licenses. In the commercial sector, where I live, Vista is the biggest stinking turd (gilded or otherwise) that has come out of Redmond yet. Specifically when you pair Vista with a domain controller (Active Directory) performance goes to hell in a hand basket! My current big projects involve rolling back Vista Business desktops to Windows XP with every customer that had the misfortune to get Vista pre-installed on their new systems. The smallest of these is 5 desktops…that’s -5 for Vista in the smallest company I service.
The bottom line is; security is actually no better in Vista than it is in XP (since SP2), but Vista consumes vastly more resources than its predecessor. If Microsoft calls that “progress” then I pity the poor Vista users.
Interesting that you picked on Apples advertising, when Steve Ballmer in the last 7 days has admitted that corporate and enterprise users will not be penalised or worse off for skipping Vista (and holding onto their XP installation base) while they wait for Windows 7. At least Apple have a product suite (Leopard + iLife + iLife) that their users actually enjoy using and find productive. Personally, as a Mac user, I loath the drudgery that is the “Windows Experience”….and don’t even get me started on Office 2007…ugh! If Steve Jobs wants to poke holes in Vista, then that’s fine with me. I invite his Microsoft counterpart to contest that Vista is the roaring success that rivals the Apple’s Mac+OSX juggernaut!
Vista, as many of us in the industry predicted at its launch, will go down in the annals of history and Microsoft not learning from the mistake that was “Windows Me”. Those who fail to learn from history will be doomed to repeat it. Regardless of your experience with Vista Dave, it doesn’t change the fact the majority of users, including myself, can’t wait to see the back of it. Microsoft need to take some pride in their product and stop releasing crapware for their users to carry out paid beta testing on, then release SPX to get to a viable product.
It’s not their best I agree, but don’t you think Microsoft asked for some sort of comeback after their “I’m a PC” ad with the fake PC man?
Have you seen the southpark version? Pretty funny!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id_kGL3M5Cg
Damn, nailed to the wall by my own bro… I can get over it
Yeah I agree with you in regards to the corporate disadvantage of Vista. Despite the fact that AD is a bag of balls… that’s been my experience in the current job and so I don’t put that job at jeopardy that is all I can say.
Back to topic. Vista is not as bad as it has been painted to be, by either Apple or anyone else. Apple are playing on the opinion and I don’t think that they care about the accuracy of it. Additionally if Apple and the associated products are that good and Windows software is that bad then would it not be better for all these companies to switch to Mac? Sure they might have a lot invested in their hardware and software but the 5 PC company - be an advantage.
Although Keith maintains and he can give the exact facts on this. That once you strip down Vista and turn off the bells and whistles and do a few performance tweaks; it uses far less memory and resources than out of the box. Not sure compared to XP though. Keith?
One of Apples sell lines is the backward compatibility between OS’s and you can code for Apple and know that it will work that way. However, Windows is not the same beast, developers know that and they know they have to change with releases. One of the reasons that big business is boycotting Vista is the fact that their developers coded for XP (thinking of my line of work only). Too much money is bound up with both their existing software and with modifying that software. Given that some of the “blame” has to rest with the devs and the companies. If they are bitching that their code won’t work with Vista then maybe they should be using Mac’s.
Personally I don’t think that Vista is the disaster that ME was. I use Vista as it came, I have not tweaked it, the shit that was using more memory was the freeking preinstalled software that got the arse! I am not seeing the resource drain that you refer to. But then my laptop does have the hardware. Microsoft and certainly Dell (the brand I have) make no secret of the fact that if you intend to run Vista out of the box you need “X” hardware - or don’t bother. Before I start hearing that Apple is the perfect match between hardware and software - remember they are a hardware company, they make the hardware that runs their software! I am sure that MS would not cop as much flack if they had that type of control.
Don’t get me wrong I can see advantages and disadvantages with both. However, this was more about the advertising. Which I think in this instance is as I have said in the post.
My own brother! Geeze… thanks for reading the blog though mate. Glad to hear that all went well btw, let me know Friday eh!
I do appreciate the comment though mate… Now guys, anyone… throw your opinion in… preferably not a Mac fanboy who intends to roll me in honey and throw me to the meat ants…
Yep, I have to agree with James on this one.
And I’m not saying this because I have a Mac…
Where I work ‘Vista’ is almost a dirty word, and it is like that in any company or corporation that has a multi-user network that requires direct control and deployment of software and hardware.
And it isn’t the stigma of Vista, its the inability of Vista to fall into line with currently developed and widely dispersed technologies.
Active Directory is certainly on top of the cake of in a massive pile of application incompatibilities.
But software is only the tip of the iceberg.
Hardware is where it seriously falls over, most companies with several thousand users aren’t going to upgrade every single machine to even the base level that Vista requires to run, that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in nondepreciating hardware write-offs.
XP can run on thousands of hardware configs, from airport screens to vending machines and from home users to major manufacturers, I’d like to see Vista be as versatile.
Now I’m not Microsoft bashing here, far from it, as a product XP still outshines its successor, and the choice Microsoft has made to change the XP platform so fundamentally has hurt them in the business world.
“Every day were saying, ‘How can we keep this customer happy?’ How can we get ahead in innovation by doing this, because if we don’t, somebody else will.” - Bill Gates
But innovation at what cost?
With innovation also comes isolation, Apple certainly knows that with its harsh upgrade paths requiring users to upgrade their machines or fall behind, but the OS X platform is a constantly evolving with release after release adding to an existing solid platform.
And this is where Microsoft should have started, not just take small GUI traits and redevelop everything else.
The end user is what the were developing Vista for, not the supporting people who administer, support and deploy these updates and OS upgrades.
The one point I disagree slightly with James’ point of view is that Microsoft haven’t learned from the failure of Windows ME, I think that they have finally come around to the realisation that:
“You can’t polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter”
And glitter is pretty much what every service pack and patch that they have released for Vista to date is, glitter to sprinkle over a failed platform, that glimmer of hope that Vista might actually become the powerhouse that the Microsoft marketing department spin.
Perhaps they truly have used Vista as a learning curve on how not alienate users / developers / manufacturers / IT specialists as they seem to be stoking the fires of development with the newly touted “Windows 7″.
I just hope that Microsoft release 2 versions (similar to Home and Pro XP editions) rather than their announced 20 editions.
Don’t get me wrong, Vista has its place in the world, my parents would be lost without it, it has streamlined their ability to use their computer to perform tasks like photo organization and simple web browsing.
This is all good, but unless that it was a mid-fifties to octogenarian demographic that Microsoft was shooting for then they missed the mark no matter how many transparent window edges it has or ‘gadgets’ it has.
Apple sure has made a tongue in cheek stab directly at the heart of the competition with the latest round of “I’m a Mac” advertisements, but it is well deserved and I think that Microsoft are taking it in their stride.
If anything this will make the Windows 7 developers take a long hard look at XP again and see how too much innovation can seriously destroy a hard working platform.
@Dave - I have to disagree about Windows as a development platform, each iteration of ANY platform brings about design and development challenges for both software and hardware.
Windows may show this greater on a day to day basis than others but OSX and Linux are not immune from the need to rethink and redevelop with each release of the OS. Hell a single kernel upgrade for Linux can cause more problems than you’d believe.
I also make point that “Big Business” may indeed have in-house developed applications and solutions, but it certainly has very little to do with software being developed specifically for XP, most Windows development is achieved with the use of 2nd and 3rd party development languages and tools.
Take .net for example, this is a development product that Microsoft itself has developed for its portability and speed of delivery of real-world programming solutions, but it is this sort of forward thinking innovation that seems not to have been replicated in its most recent OS releases.
Visual Basic is an application used by hundreds of thousands of people if not millions around the world to create software solutions, but did it start on XP? No it didn’t it was developed right back in the days of Windows 95 and 98 (it actually first appeared in 1991) and yet continues to be used to develop stable and more importantly usable applications for mass deployment.
If the so called “Big Business” was bitching about specially developed solutions for XP not being compatible with Vista then this means that Vista would be seen as a viable and upgradable OS platform for “Big Business” and therefore they would redevelop applications and rapidly deploy Vista across the vast networks that they operate.
This is not the case however, as “Big Business”, after much testing and pooling of development resources, has deemed Vista to be an unworthy platform to upgrade to as it does not meet set criteria that any OS would be scrutinized by for effectiveness and suitability to required tasks.
Would you like Vista to be the OS of choice for an airline? or perhaps have Vista running the systems at your bank?, how about Vista in the operating theater?
Oh and Active Directory is fantastic when it is configured correctly, sadly its usually badly configured in a lot of situations.
Tim: with regard to your final comments on AD, I’d have to agree. I’ve worked with directory services since Novell 3.11 (bindery tree anyone?!) through Unix platforms running NIS/LDAP and now Active Directory. AD when configured correctly works more or less as advertised. However Vista’s performance when joined to a domain is atrocious.
In my current job, we’ve tested Vista performance pre and post joining to Active DIrectory on a virgin SBS server. The result was across the board, bad. It seems all this “additional security” in Vista cripples its network stack. These tests weren’t done on low spec hardware either; HP DC7800’s with all the trimmings and big, fast hard drives.
Also, I wouldn’t want to put ANY Windows operating system in a mission-critical role…but I’m a Unix/Linux/BSD whore
@James - Lol, yeah I’ve seen Vista on AD, especially when it has multiple configured domains on separate network interfaces.
It is painful.
Vista is pretty. Vista will run well on a machine that is specifically built for Vista. Most people do not have a Vista-built machine, nor are they willing to put the money out for one. Vista is a hog when you run it out of the box. Vista’s biggest user base will be the mom and pop user who pull the machine out of the box, turn it on and never make any adjustments to the settings.
Vista runs ok if you turn off all the bells and whistles… but isn’t that what you’re buying Vista for? The pretty interface? So why am I shelling out the cash for an OS when I need to cripple the pretty exterior in order for it to work correctly?
Microsoft’s biggest blunder was when they tried to force the user to “experience” Vista in the way that Microsoft thought the computer should run. Most technophiles don’t want a computer telling them what to do and they’ll start making changes. As soon as you start fooling with the settings, then Vista’s wheels fall off.
And the whole Microsoft Registry thing annoys the hell out of me too. If you mess with this magical registry file, you bjork your system and yet every other bit of software out there leaves bits and pieces of crap in the registry.
I work in a Mac office. We have about 70 Macs running, G3s up to G5s. We also have a central file server running NT2000. Why? Because the Windows server was cheaper and more stable than the Mac server.
Pretty much all of our Macs are PowerPCs running OSX Tiger because many of our clients refuse to update their software, therefore we still need to run OS9 Classic to use some of the programs we need and OSX Leopard dumped Classic. We also don’t use Intel Mac G5’s because some of the software we use either won’t run on the Intel chip or it is very unstable. We had a couple octo processor G5s but we ended up sending them back because we couldn’t use them.
So Macs are not immune to “Big Business” not wanting to update.
I’m still torn between buying a new iMac for around $2000 that I know will work well right out of the box running OSX, or spending around $900 on a new PC running Windows XP Pro that I will have to poke and prod until I can get it to do what I want it to do. (And with all the layoffs at work recently, I can’t afford to buy both.)
Come on, guys!
I still think it’s funny. I personally don’t find anything wrong with it. Apple has good products and good ads to go with them. MS turned to those ridiculous ads with Seinfeld when Vista established itself as a dead gap in innovation (WinFS, where is it?). Most of the Windows users I know are waiting for Windows 7 to switch from XP.
Unlike Dave, I find Vista little annoyances unbearable and I’m not switching to Vista even though I got free update CDs with my laptop. I develop for the windows platform and still believe that it’s easier to work on a Mac.
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@Raf I am not sure how your commenting… but I don’t get that message when I do…
Although I will admit the UAC asking you if you want say Defender to check for updates when: A: It is a Windows application, B: It has done so before numerous times, C: It is not new program. Yes that is a bit annoying. But clicking Proceed for that action is not that bad. This is one of the few times that I can honestly say that the UAC needs a brain.
IMHO the UAC needs to be like a firewall in so much as you can “teach” it rules to adhere to.
In addition if it really bugs you that much there are plenty of utilities out there now to tame it.
Or just follow this dead simple How-To: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-user-account-control-uac-the-easy-way-on-windows-vista/
I am commenting that the ad was funny and I have nothing against it. That’s it. No low blow. Just plain fun.
I once turned off the UAC. Vista started warning me that the UAC is off and I should bring it back… I fully agree that there should be a checkbox everytime there is a new question if I want to proceed automatically from now on but there isn’t. This is the sort of thing that should be invested into. Hiring Seinfeld won’t fix that and that’s how I see this ad. Right to the point.
@Dave Mate I see this particular commercial as a hit back at the millions Microsoft spent on the “I’m a PC” ads and the whole Seinfeld fiasco.
Dave - Lifekludger