XP Trying to “Start Something”: Too Little, Too Late?
Tonight I saw a commercial for Windows XP. Plain, vanilla, popup-infested, virus-friendly, 3 year-old Windows XP. It was a bunch of people saying “Start Something” in foreign languages and/or thick english accents, I wasn’t sure which.
This Seattle P-I article says the ad is part of an “enormous” (Adweek says $100 million) advertising campaign that will run for 15 months, and it explains that if the “negative feelings” surrounding Windows XP continue through the launch of Longhorn that it could be a “disaster.”
But isn’t this a better commercial for Apple’s Tiger upgrade they’re releasing on April 29th? “Wow, Microsoft is advertising for Windows XP, which they haven’t changed in over 3 years. They must really be worried about Apple.” Who needs the Windows taskbar, anyway? All I need is a bunch of Firefox tabs.
Nobody chooses Windows. It’s like buying a car, but in a world where most car companies only make cars that come in white. You can get your car in red instead if you know how to paint it yourself (Linux), but the engine fails if you even think about another color. There’s only one little manufacturer that makes cars in blue, and boy do those people look happy. The white ones seem to get car-jacked way more often…
