No soup for Microsoft?
The software giant’s new ad starring Jerry Seinfeld has draw largely negative reviews online after premiering Thursday night during NBC’s broadcast of the National Football League’s season kickoff game.
The ad was the start of a highly anticipated $300 million advertising campaign that Microsoft is launching in attempt to rebuff Apple’s popular TV commercials, which have portrayed Microsoft and PCs as uncool.
In the commercial – which can be found at Microsoft.com and on video sharing sites – Seinfeld is walking through a mall when he spots Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at a “Shoe Circus” store. The comedian than helps Gates pick out a new pair of shoes while the jokes come quick: showering with clothes on, Gates being a “10,” platinum credit cards for a fictional shoe store.
It’s a zany ad that packs a lot of quirkiness into 90 seconds. With no direct mention of Microsoft or its operating system, Vista, the commercial concludes with the slogan: “The future, delicious.”
The ad was created by Crispin Porter & Bogusky – a firm with a reputation for oddness. Many technology and advertising blogs have turned to Seinfeld’s trademark comedy description – “nothing” – to describe the ad.
“Huh?” wrote Abbey Klaassen for Ad Age. “You could be forgiven for not knowing what the heck Microsoft’s new TV ad … was about.”
Dan Frommer, writing for the Silicon Alley Insider, pronounced the ad “not funny” and added that the mall shoe store setting “is not going to help Microsoft look any cooler.”
For the blog Techcrunch.com, Michael Arrington noted that the “tech and geek crowd is a little underwhelmed” by the ad, which he said is “a far cry from the brilliant Microsoft v. Mac ads.”
Brad Brooks, vice president of Windows consumer product marketing, said in a video posted on the Windows press Web site, that the ad is a “teaser” meant to “engage customers in a conversation … to get the conversation going again about what Windows means in people’s everyday lives.”
Even if the reaction was mostly negative, Microsoft’s ad has clearly succeeded in getting people talking.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More