I'm sure most of us have all seen the "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" ads on television or on the web. The reason these ads are so successful is that they are absolutely right on the money in terms of their assessment of the "Windows" ecosystem. If Microsoft were smart, they would do what every organization should do when dealing with valid criticism. FIX the issues. 
 
Let me give an example. Two years ago GreenPeace called Apple Inc. to task for polluting the environment with toxic chemicals and materials in Apple's iPods, Macintosh computers, and iPhones. So what does Apple do? They make eco-friendly manufacturing a major priority. Once their products are re-designed to be ecologically friendly, they now advertise and openly brag about the fact that they are leading their markets with this new initiative. GreenPeace released a statement a few days ago thanking Apple for their new focus. Apple converted their weakness into a strength that they can now market as a positive. 
 
Now let's look at Microsoft. Microsoft has been battling a horrible image lately. People are looking at them as a overly large corporation that puts profits first, and customers second. Apple is pummeling Windows Vista in television ads and Microsoft waited forever to decide to do something about it. 
 
So now that they've decided to fight, what did they decide to do? Rather than actively look at the state of their products and services, critically analyze them from a customer's point of view, and FIX them, they instead chose to start what some people have referred to as an ineffective ad campaign that absolutely does nothing but attempt to ARTIFICIALLY change Microsoft's image.  
 
Why not actually CORRECT the issues at play here? Your customers are no longer the technologically illiterate 1990's masses that are easily fooled by slick advertising and empty promises. They are sophisticated, well trained students and users of educational/information technology. Every state in the union has technology as an educational objective. Surely Microsoft realizes that the students graduating from these schools are no longer easily fooled into purchasing second-rate products. Yet Microsoft wants to use the same tactics of inaccurate or nebulously abstract marketing to "snow" us, the users into doing just that. 
 
Microsoft, your customers don't WANT to leave you. YOU are forcing them to make these decisions. Do what you need to do to correct the issues, don't run and hide from them. Create feature parity among all applications regardless of the platform that they run on. Stop creating proprietary web technologies that only work with Internet Explorer. Integrate Linux into Windows as the kernel. You can't tell me that simply building a new Windows OS on top of Linux wouldn't be a HUGE innovation and completely correct about 15 years of security issues. Focus on where the world is going and try to lead rather than sitting around thinking of another marketing ploy to sell software and other products that are now looked at as inferior. 
 
The latest complete waste of time coming out of Seattle arrived in the past day or so. Slashdot pointed to a story that discusses how Microsoft will combat the Apple Geniuses who are available at every Apple store. These "geniuses" are available to anyone and everyone who purchases products and services from Apple. They are willing to troubleshoot, teach, and assist with almost any issue that one might have with an iPod, iPhone, or Macintosh computer. 
 
What does Microsoft do? They announce an initiative to put Windows Gurus into stores like Best Buy, Circuit City etc. But, and this is a huge BUT, they won't be providing any tech support. Their sole purpose is to sell and convince. From the article: 
 
"The guru role is to help sell Windows-based PCs. It is not to be an alternative tech support channel for Microsoft, as this has no financial return beyond improved customer satisfaction," 
 
Excuse me? What is the definition of a guru? So basically Microsoft is paying people 20 bucks an hour to argue on their behalf. Am I the only one that thinks this is absolutely lame and ridiculous? 
 
They just don't get it. 
 
CH