Is Windows Vista the modern day New Coke

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Is Windows Vista the modern day “New Coke”?

September 8th, 2008

To put it mildly, Microsoft Vista isn’t exactly winning over hearts and minds of the masses. In fact, for those who are ambivalent about Microsoft, Vista has come to represent everything that is wrong with the company.

But evidently, Microsoft thinks its unsatisfied users have it all wrong. Rather than improve, upgrade or scrap the operating system, Microsoft’s strategy seems to be “Vista: It’s Not As Bad As You Think.”

The software giant is about to launch a $300 million ad campaign featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld and Microsoft founder Bill Gates to tell us just that:

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It’s a key component of the company’s push to pre-empt some of the “Hi I’m a Mac” hipness of Macintosh (yeah, nothing says “hip” like a couple of 50-something retired multi-millionaires…).

Evidently, the whole idea of the campaign is to let us know that Vista is not the bug-infested, compatibility-challenged albatross we heard it is. Microsoft conducted research with participants who said they had negative impressions of Vista. These folks were shown a version of Windows called “Mojave.” After trying Mojave and liking it, the participants were then told that the software was actually–surprise, surprise–Windows Vista. (Does this sound like a bad hidden-camera detergent commercial, or what?)

At best, this is not exactly a rousing endorsement of Vista. Instead of competing against Mac, it’s actually competing with itself. Folks, a stinker is a stinker. $300 million in media advertising isn’t going to counter users’ personal experiences and the awful word-of-mouth Vista has gotten. At some point, Microsoft is going to have to ask the question ”Have things gotten so bad with Vista that we need to pull the plug?” Why not just re-brand Vista “Mojave” with a few new bells and whistles?

And Seinfeld? Didn’t he have an old Mac Plus on his desk in the background of his apartment set on “Seinfeld?”

The Quisenblog