According to W3 Counter (http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php) as of August 2008, Windows held approximently 92 percent of the global OS market (based on monitoring unique visitors to 15K websites).

Apple OS X? 5 percent.

Little PC club? Sure, Microsoft has a massive PR problem. In the face of numbers like that, does it REALLY matter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIAOWFb9z5E

Isn’t that the exact same thing that MS is trying to do here? Make PC users feel better about their decision by artificially creating their own little “PC Club”?

I completely agree with your comments, wholeheartedly!

I switched from Windows to OSX and couldn’t be happier. I’ve spent less time keeping my machine working, and actually WORKING on what I want to.

These new MS ads are simply an indication of how MS is trying to recover from their poor product track record, and the fact they’ve lost touch with the average consumer.

Apple is a hardware company that happens to sell an operating system that run their computers (and a series of excellent consumer grade media apps that are bundled with them) as well. They are trying to convince people to buy their *computers* rather than another company’s *computers*. I don’t think that their primary intention is to insult Microsoft as it is to use Windows’ reputation as an albatross around the neck of the PC companies.

Microsoft is a software company that sells to partners who may or may not make the experience excellent. That is the problem that Microsoft must address – Apple is trying to get people to buy their hardware; Microsoft, I guess, is trying to convince people not to switch?

To make the ad copy, the ad agency apparently wasn’t a PC.

See http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/09/19/microsofts_im_a_pc_campaign_created_with_macs.html

http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

Watch them all. Even your dreaded “pizza box” ad talked about the fact that college students were buying more Macs because they are easy to set up and they run Office. “Off the air” is about the genius bar and ease of transition from PC to Mac. “Sad song,” “Group” and “Pep Rally” are all about the woes of Vista, none of which are problems for Mac.

The difference between the Mac ads and the MS ad is that the Mac ads have at the core a message about why Mac is better. The MS ad doesn’t address why Windows is critical, or better, for those folks who are doing those things. Yes, the Mac ads poke fun at PC, but every time the poke has a basis–difficulty in setup, virus attacks, ease of use, no organized help, Vista woes, no native backup, etc, etc, etc.

Let’s face it. PC-bigots and Mac-bigots have long standing disagreements that border on religious wars. As one who moved from PC to Mac, all I can say is that the move has worked very, very well for me and that the Mac ads have told the truth about why the Mac is better.