Print - XP Reloaded Phase 3: Windows Marketing Campaign on Tap

Microsoft has unveiled the third phase of its "XP Reloaded" plan, in which it's attempting to renew consumer enthusiasm in Windows XP, its 3.5-year-old OS. In phase 1 (August/September 2004), Microsoft released XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows Media Player (WMP) 10, the MSN Music preview, and XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, while its partners shipped the first Portable Media Centers. In phase 2 (October 2004) of XP Reloaded, Microsoft shipped XP Media Center Edition (XP MCE) 2005, WMP 10 Mobile, Photo Story 3, and the final version of MSN Music, while its partners shipped Media Center Extender devices. Now, in phase 3, Microsoft is unleashing a massive ad campaign, called "Start Something," that will bring its message to the people.

"As we enter the third decade of Windows, the Start Something campaign celebrates how people can follow their dreams and pursue what they're passionate about--from creating an in-home music studio to starting a new business or becoming the family photographer," said Will Poole, Microsoft's senior vice president of the Windows Client Business. "Windows has evolved to integrate a wide range of applications, services, and hardware in a way that has become familiar and expected as part of everyday life for millions of people around the world. We hope that people will be inspired to experience the endless possibilities available in the Windows ecosystem."

Start Something will run for 15 months and, according to Microsoft, will "celebrate the countless possibilities for Windows to bring what people are passionate about to life using the hundreds of thousands of software applications and devices that work with Windows XP." The campaign will include Web, print, and TV advertising; retail store presence; online activities; and more, according to the software giant. The advertisements will run in 11 countries, starting in the United States and then moving to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The company noted that the campaign will showcase 13 themes spanning education, science, music, sports, family and life management, gaming, photography, cooking, travel, entertainment, work, productivity, and entrepreneurship.

You might wonder why Microsoft is choosing now to launch this campaign, but the truth is that the Start Something ad campaign has been in the planning stages for about a year. However, conspiracy theorists can have fun with this tempting bit of coincidence: The XP ad campaign comes just before rival Apple Computer ships its next-generation Mac OS X release, codenamed Tiger.

In related news, Microsoft and the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) are also promoting a related campaign for the "Start Something PC" ( http://www.startsomethingpc.com ). My sources tell me that the Start Something PC is essentially a next-generation Athens PC prototype, which will be unveiled next week at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2005 in Seattle. A preview movie for the PC promises that "something is coming ... something fun ... something with reward ... something with recognition ... something with style ... something inspired." Something tells me it won't be all that exciting.

MacDailyNews Take: Unfortunately, "Start waking up," "Start thinking for yourselves," and "Start looking beyond the initial sticker price" will not be used. "Start is for shutting down," "Start reformatting your hard drive for your biannual fresh Windows install," and "Start getting owned" most definitely will not be mentioned within the confines of Microsoft's campaign. http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/5504/

This site is called WINDOWS IT Pro. Why do you feel it necessary to quote a MAC site?

> ...and "Start getting owned" most definitely will not be mentioned within the confines of Microsoft's campaign. And why would they be? Microsoft has little to fear from Apple and it's tiny niche market.

i doubt ms would start caring about apple's OS releases. they just want to assert their position as ultimate rules of the OS world. hail ms hail ms. thou shall rule forever.

there is no conspiracy. MS has more to fear of linux than apple land and apple trolls can ever wish to attain. i have a feeling they just want to give a fresh new image to the OS people already have in the hopes of building exitement for the things to come. MS mightly slow longhorn will be the most important OS release in the history of computing...and historic that they actually finished. They simply want to buzzz their new vision for longhorn while people are on xp so that when LH does come out, people will be hiped. but that won't work of course since unlike apple, MS userbase aren't *** kisses.

Apple say's it's exciting when a new iPod comes out, but when Microsoft say's it, I believe it...

This smells like image polishing to me. Windows could use it. To the average person the term "Windows" means spyware, virus infections and other endless hassles.

"MICROSOFT LAUNCHES WINDOWS XP CAMPAIGN WITH AD MADE ON APPLE MAC" How ironic. Check the EXIF info of the ad's pictures and you will plainly see that it is made on the Mac platform. Start something indeed. Hahahahaha. Proof here: http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/5518/

Wow, I downloaded the photos. EXIF = "Adobe Photoshop CS Macintosh" Microsoft is sooooo lame.

RE: "START SOMETHING" I love it!! It has that aura of desperation and infers that you haven't done ANYTHING" LOL.

Did MS accidentally rip themselves off? Man I'm dizzy.. In using the 'Start' (referring to the start button on the left side of the screen, which works a lot like the Apple Menu from Mac OS 7) they are harkening back to the good old days of 1995... Since then they've.. Er.. Well, of course, they did Luna.. that was a big breakthough.. and.. er.. well, they've been using the same OS for about 10 years now, and now they're going to add.. MS Quartz?

Wow!! Only a Mac fan would have the free time to find out something that i could still care less about...

Alright let's see windows is sticking to a good idea they had! Oh no! How horrible! I mean it must mean that just cause a few button names have remained the same, the rest of the OS has not changed the tiniest bit. In case a few of you Mac-lovers haven't noticed, Mac still has problems getting its interrupt keys to actually interrupt. The only reason that people aren't omplaining about security flaws in Macs is because if there's one found in Mac, may be a million people in the world care. If there's one found in Windows, then hundreds of millions of people in the world care. So enjoy your mac and have fun with your single button.

RE "The only reason that people aren't omplaining about security flaws in Macs is because if there's one found in Mac, may be a million people in the world care." Congratulations! That's the most asstastic reasoning I've heard yet.

And I thought they wouldn't be able to top "Plays for Sure". They really outdid themselves.

RE "Congratulations! That's the most asstastic reasoning I've heard yet." Hmmm.... Mac fans are really mature. If Windows users kissed butt like Mac-lovers, everyone would be using Windows because of peer-pressure...or death...

ecause if there's one found in Mac, may be a million people in the world care. If there's one found in Windows, then hundreds of millions of people in the world care ----------- So..Mac OS X is just as buggy? Got it... You might wanna sit down for this: MS chose a closed architecture for the Xbox, you know.. just like all consoles. You wouldn't want your Xbox crashing now would you? http://media.e-arenas.org/img/others/xbox_crash.jpg Oops. Okay.. well, it's more stable than it would be otherwise.. http://news.com.com/Study:+Unpatched+PCs+compromised+in+20+minutes/2100-7349_3-5313402.html

Your passion, our potential, err. Your passion, our profit? Nevermind, just Start Something cause we Plays for Sure. Genius.

Yeah, it's rather amusing to check the EXIF data of the images on Microsoft's ad page and see that a Macintosh was used to create them.

Microsoft Evangelists say: "Start the Exodus": http://lennpryor.blogs.com/lenn/2005/04/goodbye_microso.html

windows Gui is starting to get a bit boring... i'm jealous of the nice shiny desktp mac users have... why doesn't ms jazz up their desktop with some official stuff, rather then that 3rd party crap... that would probably brainwash half of windows users. Oh and some impact mac has..... i am in the 3rd year (american 8th grade) and until i explained yesterday 4/5 of my class thought that windows was the only OS. And 2/5 thought that windows was a seperate company from microsoft. Pfff. I thought this was meant to be the 21st century and most of my class probably can't even type. That's what's holding back innovation....

honestly, WOW!!!! everyone makes a big deal about a pic for MS being made on a mac with photoshop.....doesnt anyone know that most of the ad pics, logos, etc... for any company are made with photoshop on a mac. y? because photoshop is the best photo program. duh.

Photoshop is cross platform; they (theoretically) could have used Patcher XP to create their own ad. It just plain looks bad. And to the other post, fear not, your fellow 8th graders are hardly the definitive measure of relevance in the world of operating systems. Kids use either their parent's PC or a PC their parents bought for them. Because (most) parents are provided a Windows box at work, that's what they buy for home because they're brainwashed into thinking that they will somehow lose compatability with the world on anything other than Windows. Good for you that you realize there are better solutions out there; ask your parents for a Mac mini and leave your classmates in the proprietary, virus plagued environment that is Windows.

Don't mind Paul, guys--he's too busy trolling MacObserver under the name "Reality Check" whenever they post another one of his infamous Apple death knells that gets proven wrong every six months.

Lets be honest. The Wintel platform is dead. Next year Apple will have dual core processors and the successor to Tiger and Longhorn will be still in Beta or so buggy no one will use it. Microsoft kills innovation and they will get what they deserve. They take innovative products and make them bland like Wonder Bread and Mayonase.

nice to see the insecure mac users hammering windows...i like to see how secure tiger would be if there was a billion computers with it..as far as i'm concerned windows gives me all i need..i can run whatever i need on it and can play games which is the main reason i bought one..Bill Gates get's a hammering from everybody but people forget that he's given over $1,000,000,000 to charity since he became rich..i don't see jobs doing that

can run whatever i need on it and can play games which is the main reason i bought one ------------- Hey, isn't this supposed to be a site for IT Pros..?! I mean.. let's cut the crap, the most important apps for Windows users are games, aren't they? Not to generalize, but, next time someone reccommends to you that there is no software on the Mac, it's nice to know he actually means you can't play Half Life 2 on the Mac. Finally I see what I'm missing! Finally I get it! VIDEO GAMES! Again.. IT PRO?

To: "Hey, isn't this supposed to be a site for .." Right, there is almost no software for the Mac .. at least to speak of, except iTunes and garage band. All the software out there, games, iTunes, Mozilla, database software, simulation software, all manner of utility software and even Boeing 767 diagnostic and military software is avaibale to run on Windows. Heck, even my bank's bank machines use Windows 4 NT sp6. Get over it. The thing is is that Microsoft has made a realtively consistent API available and open to everyone. Couple that with Win2003 on high end hardware and you have dot quadruple 9 uptime: i.e. 99.9999 % of the time I like Windows. Unlike the others, it's designed by humble people; and it's bascially a uniform open platform [from a developer point of view] and generally ubiquitous.

In my opinion. The biggest competition microsoft is not apple, nor linux. It is microsoft itself. The biggest chalenge for any microsoft OS be it windows XP or the upcomming longhorn is to convenve the huddle masses that are still clinging to the prehistorich windows 9x OS to move on to bigger and better things.