Messages from Obvious Land
I think its odd that Microsoft has decided to spend significant marketing dollars to spread two ideas most people already know. Their first big advertisement, not counting those odd little blurbs between Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, was showing lots and lots of people, and famous people, proclaiming “I’m a PC”. The second, which features a girl named Lauren on a venture to find a new computer for less than $1000, tells us that Macs are more expensive that PC’s. Both ideas, (1) lots of people use PC’s and (2) Macs are more expensive, seem to me to be concepts that most people understand already.
Who would argue with either of these ideas? Without getting caught up in the idea that “PC” has nothing to do, necessarily, with Windows or Microsoft (a PC can run any operating system), I think its bizarre that marketing people would think that “I’m a PC” would have any effect on peoples’ computer choices. Similarly, telling people what they already know about Macs and their prices will probably also communicate the idea that if you want a quality product you’ll have to pay for it. Hence, a Mac is the better option.
Yes, I’m a Mac user, but I also use Windows XP on an HP notebook (like most of corporate America, we have not upgraded to Vista nor do we have plans to do so). I think I’m about 5-10% more productive on a Mac but Windows is a perfectly good operating system for doing what I need to do. I’m not a “fanboy” (whatever that means) for either operating system but I do have one opinion about the upside of Apple hardware and their cost of ownership. I have an old Apple Powerbook, the black one, from 1997. It has the current Mac OS installed on it and it runs great. Show me one PC that’s over ten years old and still running like my Powerbook and I’ll bet its running Linux. Put simply, Macs last longer. Is that what you’re going to tell us next Microsoft?

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