Hehe. Marketing departments are lying, filthy weasels. And Microsoft consistently scrapes the bottom of the ethical barrel.
I don’t believe them. I don’t trust them. I refuse to run ANYTHING from Microsoft on my machines, whether it’s my iBook (with IE removed) or my BDS servers.
Then again, I’m a friggen nutcase with a FreeBSD tattoo who has turned down job offers from Microsoft based solely on their unethical practices.
It doesn’t say much for Apple that they actually were able to find such screaming fuck-tards for their ads…
/wave Dooku
<-- fellow Microsoft employee, World Wide Ops!
A lot of my friends give me grief for working for the “evil empire” but this is a GREAT company to work for. I love it, I was so excited when I got hired 3 years ago that I slipped my new business card into all my Christmas cards that year.
I agree. The whole incident disgusted me. That’s one of the many reasons I hate the marketing division. And I am not hypocritical for hating the entire marketing division, since there aren’t very many and I know and have hated them all for years, and I’m not alone. I’d love to explain in full color detail, but I already think I say too much about MS internal things around these parts.
If the rant in question calls that company lazy, then goes on to say they imitate rather than innovate, then tosses in “fucking weasels” - then yes, I would think that rant was accusing that company’s employees of having those attributes.
If I worked for any of those companies I would feel equally insulted if I read something similar to what you wrote about my company, and I wouldn’t act surprised if they defended themselves, as I did.
I’d have to say that I pretty much hate Microsoft’s business practices and marketing stuff… Office and Windows are highly overpriced, and in the past have blatantly ripped off the features of other products. And the “integrating IE into Windows” trick was utterly absurd and the company should have been broken up for it.
On the other hand, it would be hard for me to get by with my Mac without Microsoft Word. I try to use AppleWorks whenever I can, but there are somethings I just need Word for. It’s a very nice program, I just don’t like the politics associated with the company that makes it.
So thanks for making such a nice program, Dooku. Though I would suggest that lowering the price a little would move a lot more copies. And it would be a kick if Entourage could get the mail out of my old Outlook .PST file which I have left over from when I ditched Windows.
Kirk
I just find the Microsoft ad in question amusingly bad on so many levels. It was written by a PR person, claiming to be a real testimonial. It mentioned no advantages that Windows might have over OS X (focusing instead on things like the fact that XP has IE and Office, which of course are available for Macs as well). The identity of the “testimonial” writer was found because her name was still in the Word Document in the ad, due to Microsoft’s lack of concern for privacy. And the stock photograph in question was from Getty, which is the biggest competitor to Corbis, which is owned by Bill Gates.
The Mac testimonials at least were amusing and somewhat honest, even if they pretty much seem to be aimed at people who are already Mac users.
And regardless of what Brutus might say, Tony Hawk is not a screaming fuck-tard.
The people in the switch ads are dumb because smart Mac users started using Mac first.
Likewise smart PC users didn’t use PC before Mac.
Switching generally occurs when a totally computer illiterate individual who is also a total idiot gets a computer. Naturally they don’t know how to use it and being a total idiot cannot learn. Naturaly it is the computers fault in the “mind” of our soon to be switcher. They get a computer expert, do some cursory looking into it (or just watch some TV until a comercial tells them what to do) and get set up with the other platform. Cognative dissonance and any help in set up produces the euphoria and apparent functionality of the switch.
There are very few reasons to switch platforms. Specific software that you really, really need is one of them. A change in what you use the computer for is another. If the computer seems hard to use there are two questions to ask, 1) do I need to do what I’m trying to do? and 2) Am I sure I’m doing it right? If both are yes and it can’t get done without a major hassle, or at all, then switching may be a good idea. Or updating.
Really I have a Mac and I suggest them if only because the machines are better if not the OS in all cases. The reason is actually kinda simple. I don’t like video games that much and I find Windows aesthetically unpleasing. I like OS X because it lets me tweak my machine the way I want to, ie dangerously and without any knowledge of what I’m doing. I never really liked the way you did things on Windows but it isn’t the great demonic mind game that the insane Mac advocates claim it is. There is not enough of a disparity of the Power/Usability trade off between Mac OS and Windows to make a call based on that. More over the lack of software on Mac OS compared to on Windows is a result of factors related to business and marketting not in coding.
The only reason I’d suggest buying a Mac is you find it more appealing for some reason and you can do everything you need to do on it. Same with a PC. Participating in a platform war or any related feces hurling contest is sad and beneath real humans.
<big fat hijack>
Dooku, on behalf of the entire scientific community, next time you’re in one of those meetings, could you get someone to make a decent equation editor for Office? Powerpoint is becoming the default for scientific talks, but the equations look like crap. Truly awful. Of all the features of MS Office, MS Equation Editor has always been the disfigured half brother that lives in the cellar. I don’t think it’s been updated in a decade. It doesn’t even install by default. It’s sad.
</big fat hijack>
Appleworks saves and opens Word files perfectly in its newest incarnation so you shouldn’t have to use Word if you don’t want to. I don’t use Word because Appleworks is IMO a better program. I also don’t want to pay for redundant software.
That said IE is a good browser and my Microsoft keyboard that I’m typing on now is real nice. The software for it is also really nice. They aren’t as evil or incompentent as people say. They are just as evil and incompentent as a company of that size is expected to be.
Well, I don’t care much for Microsoft as a corporation. (Sorry, Dooku, but the upper management folks’ style just gives me the creeps). And I always thought DOS and Win95/98/ME sucked big time. NT/2000/XP just sucks interface-wise and if I had a PC I’m sure I’d have downloaded some skins or tweaks or whatever the PC equivalent of Kaleidoscope is. OS itself isn’t bad (oughta be decent, it was designed by ship-jumping VMS geeks formerly from Digital).
Application-wise, Excel rules. I think it is cool that Lotus 123 and Quattro Pro and so forth are out there (everyone oughta have competition) but I’ve never seen a spreadsheet app that could go nose to nose with Excel, which is easy to use on the simple end and powerful if you wanna delve.
Word sucks, just plain sucks. I’d use MacWrite 4.6 in a vMac window before I’d use Word. Outlook sucks and infects and fails to be Eudora. Access sucks FileMaker’s exhaust fumes and chokes on them. Powerpoint…uh, remind me again what PowerPoint does? Oh yeah, the bullet points. With the Greek Diner placemat doohickeys around the outside. I guess Powerpoint does them quite well if you’re into that stuff, I wouldn’t know. Mostly if it weren’t for Excel, Microsoft could fold up shop tomorrow and I wouldn’t miss their stuff.
And yeah, their marketing sucks. Apple’s marketing used to suck. That was back when we had them. We are BBDO. Dooku, don’t you ever, ever tell anyone I said that. Apple is much better off with our competitor, Chiat/Day which has had some half-decently innovative ads out on their behalf.
All these hijacks and posturings aside, did anyone else get this from the OP?:
"The Associated Press tracked Mallinson by examining personal data hidden within documents that Microsoft had published with its controversial ad. "
Apparently, they do their Annual Report on a Big Blue G3:
http://www.salon.com/tech/log/1999/10/12/microsoft_report/print.html
Dooku, I bear you no animosity and I understand that you want to stand up for what you do. I’m a printer. High-end, commercial. We just got a Word doc yesterday. No one wants it. It’s 67 pages if you open it on the PC, and 63 if you open it on a Mac (my Mac - it’s only 60 if you open it on the other PC). THAT’S cross-platform? How in the hell are we supposed to deal with a document that defaults to its local machine? Don’t get me started on a PostScript workflow, or TrueType, or Publisher, or any of the other nightmares that come from your GENERAL direction. I would love to actually talk to you or have an email dialogue with you, since it appears you are on the good side of this struggle.
YES, the Apple SWITCH ads are embarassing and lame to a macevangelist like me. The Microsoft switch ad was embarassing and lame, too.
BTW, Thanks, Microsoft, for saving Apple with $500million when the chips were down (they make more than that per annum on mac software, thanks to folks like dooku.
Apple had several billion in the bank when Microsoft bought $500 million in non-voting Apple stock. The buy didn’t save Apple financially. It was just a major show of confidence.
Microsoft cashed its shares in when the 36 (or 48?) month period they had to hold them ended, and because of the tech boom made a lot of money off of them, to boot.
Kirk
Well, Dooku, sorry you were offended by the M$ bashing. Are you attempting to start a precedent where if a poster rags a company, but if somebody on the board works there, it’s not cool to slam the Co?
Bullshit, dude.
I think M$ is a predatory, monopolistic entity, who drags ass on security fixes for lame software, but that doesn’t mean I think people who work them are assholes.
Have some perspective man.
I am sorry, I just do not believe that this scenario you paint is all that common.
I am (sorta) a “switcher”. I got a PC in late '97, and while I never was a geek, I got around reasonably well. I designed web sites, did graphics, blah blah blah. Did OK.
The only reason I got a Mac (an ancient PPC 6100, in late '99) was out of curiosity. But I fell in love with it. I still use my PC, can’t say I really hate it or anything, but find myself on my Mac most of the time. (I now have a year-old G4 tower, which I adore.)
As for the “Switcher” ads, I am not saying that they are all that great (or always deal with the specific issues that I think they should deal with) but many of these people don’t strike me as mind-numbingly stupid. They are talking about how contrary Windows can be—I tend to agree with them, as do many Mac users.
This guy used to be a Mac-basher, and seems a little too geeky to be a complete computer newbie.
This girl addresses an issue I am all too famiiar with: the difference between connecting a digital camera to a Mac vs. PC. She “saved Christmas” indeed, because, after all, who wants to download Windows drivers on Christmas? Whether or not she is a stupid newbie or not is not the issue—the Windows drivers would need to be downloaded, no matter what.
This guy was a former IT manager. Doesn’t sound like a newbie to me. Same with this guy—he’s a Windows LAN administrator by day, but enjoys his Mac at home. (Sorry, I know that at least the last guy had an Apple Quicktime ad, but I can’t bestir myself to find it right now.)
Oh, and here’s another IT director, who has worked with both Windows and Unix for years—he’s falled in love with OS X, much to the amazement of his friends.
I’m not saying that these ads are all that great, but obviously not all of them fit the profile of the terminally stupid person who needs to have everything “spoon fed” to them (as Hastur seems to think).
Oh, and Dooku? Thanks for doing such a great job on Mac products for MS. I read good reviews and good comments about the Mac dept. of MS all the time in my Mac books and publications. You are much appreciated.
I also wanted to mention to you that beagledave was being facetous about some of his MS bashing—or at least I took it that way. He’s got a history of not taking this whole Mac/PC rivalry thing too seriously. (Even though he admits that he’s “drunk the coolaid”.) He even bashes Apple when he feels it appropriate (he thought the whole iPod idea was doomed—happily, he was wrong about that, but he started a whole Pit thread about it!). I think he was being facetious, but apparently it wasn’t obvious enough to some of you. Understandable, I suppose.
Sheesh. Talk about a typo. Sorry for botching up your username, The Tim.
Four words:
Wow, what a thread. First of all, it amazes me that someone is touchy about Microsoft bashing. For goodness sake, don’t read Slashdot. And don’t go work at a tech company other than Microsoft, especially one that makes software that runs on Windows. For what it’s worth, though, Microsoft’s work on the Mac is much more highly regarded than their other stuff.
About switchers being technically clueless. I disagree. A lot of unix-heads are switching over to Mac these days. I’ve done so, and I used to run Linux, so the ease of use of the Mac UI is a major contributing factor.
No problem yosemitebage, natural mistake.
I think I was a little unclear. My first bit about switching wasn’t meant literally. People keep insulting the intelligence of switchers and making bizarre comments about the event.
Later in the post I get a bit more serious and it is at odds with what I said in what you quoted. I really think that switching platforms is really about a local incident of the power/use trade off changing combined with extraneous factors. Or in other words it isn’t just because of inherent superiority or inferiority.
Windows has some built in-functions that Mac OS should. Vice versa. I think that both systems have approximetely equal power. That is you can within limits change things about the system and get nifty stuff done. They are no where near Linux and its ilk but they make up for that in usability. For the average person I think that the usability is also fairly much equal. Basically computing isn’t perfectly intuitive and it is a matter of learning the system. Arguments over power/usability of Windows vs Mac drags on and goes down into little details that really just have personal reactions. Some people like the interface metaphors, others don’t.
So like I said the reason to switch are basically comes down to, all things being equal, aesthetics. Do you like the look and feel of Mac better than Windows? If not then why switch? If you need to get something done and you can’t do it in a reasonably easy way then the power/usability trade off has changed for you. I really don’t think that these local shits truly favor the Mac. I do think though that because Windows is the sort of default people get it when for them the power/usability trade off is bad. As a result there are more defections to the Mac to “get things to work”. I think that if things had developed differently and OS was not hardware dependent (ie if you get an Apple machine you can’t have Windows and if you get an Intel machine you can’t have Mac OS) then the numbers would be far more even. This is because it wouldn’t be as much a hassle to switch, and it would be possible to have both operating systems on one machine. Things didn’t develop that way and because of more succesfull business practices and other factors Windows dominated despite not being an inherently better product. The roles could have been reversed.
Hmmm… wonder if I should point out the other fraudulent web ad that Microsoft pulled.?
I suspect that the Register will be getting angry emails from Redmond. 
p.s thanks to the fellow dopers who got the facetiousness of my M$ hyperbole. I use M$ products and I use Apple products. As yosemitebabe pointed out, I’ve also bashed Apple in the past. Bashing a company, even using hyperbole in the rant, does not equal insulting every employee of that company IMHO.
When was that? I remember MS investing $150 Million in 97-98 and Apple was most certainly in rough shape. They definetly didn’t have “several billion” in the “bank” then. When was this 1/2 billion investment? I couldn’t find anything when I googled other than the original $150 mil infusion. By what I remember, when they did the $150mil, it was indeed a blessing.