The empire strikes back

Microsoft has had it with Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" advertising campaign:

Speaking at a keynote address at Microsoft's annual Worldwide Partner Conference, [Brad] Brooks [VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing], signified that Microsoft was ready to admit mistakes and reposition itself to tell a better story about Windows Vista, to counter attacks by rival Apple and let customers know that Vista is finally stable and ready.

It's about time.

"You thought the sleeping giant was still sleeping, well we woke it up and it's time to take our message forward," Brooks said. "We've faced these challenges before, and we're going to solve them again. There's a conversation going on in the marketplace today and it's just plain awful. We've got to get back on the front foot."

He pointed to selected negative quotes from Windows XP's first year as evidence that operating system launches can often be rocky.

Ed Bott has done a good job of pointing out that Windows XP bashing was quite fashionable not long after its launch. Now XP has become the greatest operating system ever, and Vista is the new target of Microsoft critics.

In the coming weeks and months, Microsoft will launch a huge advertising campaign that's been reported to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Microsoft advertised Vista to small businesses in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today the last two weeks, and plans a much larger wave of ads under the tagline "Free the People." Brooks gave a taste of what's coming with a few swipes at Apple and some selected highlights of Windows Vista's features.

Specifically:

"We've got a pretty noisy competitor out there," Brooks said of Apple whose "I'm a Mac... and I'm a PC," commercials criticize Windows Vista.

"You know it. I know it. It's caused some impact. We're going to start countering it. They tell us it's the iWay or the highway. We think that's a sad message. Software out there is made to be compatible with your whole life." As part of that compatibility message, Microsoft will work to reverse the widely held belief, informed by early troubles upon the operating system's launch, that Vista isn't compatible with many applications and devices.

While I've never been an evangelist for any particular operating system, I've never cared for Apple's P.R. jabs at Microsoft, nor the boasting of Apple fanatics who can't stop talking about how great the Mac operating system is.

I use both Windows and Mac regularly, and in my experience, both have problems. Windows can bluescreen, necessitating a restart, while the Spinning Wheel of Death can make using a Mac incredibly frustrating.

As to security...while Windows users generally appreciate the importance of safeguarding the OS, Apple fanatics seem to think their operating system is invincible and immune to viruses and spyware that is inadvertently downloaded from the Web. I can't count how many times I have been told I wouldn't have to worry about protecting my computer if I switched to Mac by Apple fanatics.

Apple's constant and largely unanswered bragging about the superiority of its products (from Safari to the iPhone) has gotten really annoying. I'm glad to hear that Microsoft has decided to respond.

Maybe in one of their ads they can make light of the fact that Mac remains a lousy platform for gaming.

(More and more titles are becoming available for Mac, which is a good thing, but the list still pales in comparison to what's available for Windows).

Microsoft is correct that the list of software that is not compatible with Windows Vista is shrinking rapidly. For example, a longtime holdout, the United Parcel Service (UPS) began distributing Vista-compatible betas of its WorldShip program for businesses not long ago.

As an organization, NPI's position is that software should be compatible across platforms as much as possible. It's part of the reason why we're big fans of Mozilla Firefox - it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

And it's why we spent months making sure the most recent version of Pacific NW Portal (Seaside) was compatible with all the major operating systems.