Print - Microsoft Prepping Vista Ad Campaign

A year and a half after it first started selling Windows Vista, Microsoft is prepping a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at dispensing lingering doubts about the operating system. The campaign will tackle inaccuracies flaunted by Apple's infamous "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ad campaign as well as the widely publicized if under-educated opinions of online tech pundits.

The theme of the campaign is simple enough: Everything you've heard about Vista is wrong. And Microsoft has evidence to back up that claim, not the least of which is over 180 million licenses sold, a blockbuster number that, combined with recent PC sales figures, suggests new Vista users are coming onboard this year at a rate over 12 times faster than, say, are users of Apple's Mac OS X. And that was happening before Microsoft stopped selling Windows XP, so you can put that hand down now, Mr. Doubter.

But Vista's viability isn't tied to just sales numbers. After all, best selling products are frequently inferior to the competition. According to Microsoft, while "a few" users were disappointed by their early experiences with Windows Vista in early 2007, the company has made massive improvements to the OS since then. The Vista experience today, Microsoft says, is far superior.

The company highlights three areas of confusion.

Compatibility. Despite misguided reports and blog posts about Vista's compatibility issues, the truth is that Vista is hugely compatible with hardware and software today. The product supports nearly 77,000 hardware devices (double the number supported at launch) and runs 98 of the top 100 consumer software applications. Over 2700 applications are certified to run on Windows Vista.

Windows XP. Many have complained that Vista is just a prettier version of XP and doesn't offer much incentive to upgrade. Sure, XP is a great OS, and Microsoft says it's proud so many have embraced it. But the company points to Vista benefits like better security, faster and better searching, new and enhanced digital media tools (Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Media Center, Windows Movie Maker), new productivity tools (Windows Mobility Center, Windows Meeting Space, and Sync Center), integrated parental controls, pervasive PC and document backup functionality, hard disk encryption capabilities, and, yes, it's gorgeous new user interface as Vista-exclusive abilities that differentiate its latest OS from XP.

Performance. Despite reports that Vista is outperformed by XP on the same hardware, Microsoft can point to independent performance tests proving that Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1) actually performs nearly identically to XP. In cases were XP continues to outperform Vista, Microsoft says that Vista is simply doing more on your behalf, securing your system against attack, indexing files for easier searching, and the like. But Vista also offers better power management functionality than does XP, a key concern these days. The notion here is that while the performance differences are negligible in day to day use, Vista's advantages more than make up for the difference.

While the actual ad campaign is still largely a mystery, here's what we know so far. Microsoft is spending about $300 million to promote its latest OS. It will focus on correcting widespread misconceptions with tag lines like "at one point, everyone thought the Earth was flat too" to put Vista's critics into the proper light. And it will be wide-reaching, with spots online and in more traditional advertising.

"We know a few of you were disappointed by your early encounter [with Vista]," Microsoft admits. "Printers didn't work. Games felt sluggish. You told us -- loudly at times -- that the latest Windows wasn't always living up to your high expectations for a Microsoft product ... Our goal is always to make each new version of Windows better than the last. With Windows Vista, we're convinced we succeeded."

So we'll soon see whether the world is ready to believe the truth about Windows Vista, or whether its competitors and critics will continue to control the conversation.

I don't consider being forced to buy Vista on a new computer, even if you "downgrade" it to XP, as a voluntary sale or an endorcement of how good Vista is.

A gather there won't be any Microsoft attack ads on Mac systems such as pricing, upgrading (going from 10.4 to 10.5? you need to pay), hardware compatibility (not all hardware works on a Mac), security (numerous bugs in QuickTime, Safari, etc.), etc.

Two things always sell, sex, and fear and dismay. Political writers use the fear and dismay, all their left and right-wing hit-piece books. Tabloids use sex. And apparently the tech-press has gravitated to slamming things. You'll sell more rags and get more page-views if you're constantly negative, rather than positive. And besides, these guys have to eat, and subscriptions are failing miserably, and ad revenues are down. I've worked with a couple big "anti-Vista" guys, and they actually learned to enjoy the OS after being forced to use it for a week. Negative perceptions are huge. That doesn't change the fact that upgrading old hardware is dumb -- you can't run it on a 2002 computer and expect a decent experience. Some enterprise apps are useless (should be remoted off a server cluster), etc. There is a time and place for everything, but the OS is definitely maligned for no salient and universal reason.

My initial experience with Vista in early 2007 was an exercise in aggravation. I ran the OS until early November, then rolled back to XP after a job change. That being said, I just installed Vista SP1 a few weeks back to "try it again," and the experience has been like night and day. No driver issues, no application issues, no performance issues, no quirks, nothing. It runs as good or better than XP did on the same laptop (Dell M65) and I can confidently say it's a great experience now. Instead of focusing on everything that was going wrong, now I can now focus on enjoying all the new functionality.

Please, stop comparing apples and cans of soup... It is harder to sell soup in so many type of cans. Also, Home grown apple producers don't have to buy space on store shelves etc... Apples are good for your teeth too, convenient when you smile. From time to time, I have to eat my soup too. GJMillet PS Bugs are inherent to coding. However, the only reason you may have more than necessary is due to a strategic choice of delivering an unfinished product

Windows Vista on a NEW computer with MORE than 2 GB of memory, along with some major tweaks in the OS make it bearable. Microsoft Vista is still too bloated for the average user. Over 78 running processes right out of the box, the annoying sidebar (which is identified as spyware by several antispyware programs), etc. I am not an undereducated field tech, and I still advise people to wait, if possible, for the next OS to come out or until Vista SP2 is released. I still feel that microsoft is using the general public as beta testers with Vista..

Perhaps the compatability problems with Vista 32 bit have been addressed, however 64 bit Vista has big time problems with vendors being able to interact with Vista-64. If you want the resources of 64-bit crunching, be ready to carefully purchase the programs and peripherals which *actually work*, not just the ones where the vendor says; "sure, this works with Vista 64...!" Because most of your present ones for prior OS's will not function properly. Be sure to check the Compatability List. All that said, I do like Vista-64 even tho I still have to use older OS's to do my work. One of the best Vista items, imho, is the Voice Recognition program. Great program, mine is up to normal speaking speed now with very few mistakes.... ;-)

"..with Service Pack 1 (SP1) actually performs nearly identically to XP" -- Bwahhahahaha... HAhahahahha If that was the case I wouldn't have had to buy all new hardware, 4G of ram, and other great hardware just to get similar performance compared to my old pc with a 2.8Ghz, 1Gig ram. Surely nobody actually believes such a claim...

Why not spend the money on fixing some of the bugs in VISTA, instead of horrid advertising lies. Why is it that VISTA refuses to connect to wi-fi access points in public spots if the NETWORK name is the same as one you have stored in your laptop. In thewse sitautions, Vista says: The network's security settings are incompatible with your laptop! And it becomes almost impossible to connect! CXhaning the access point name(SSID) is easier than the VISTA fix for this feature of Vista!

Please, I am not stupid. I don't need a Vista ad campaign, or a Vista convincing. I am an engineer and I will continue to use XP on all our machines until we have a better OS. Vista's user experience in every dialog and screen is inferior to XP. I know there are some new features in Vista. Duh... But when the usability and GUI is as bad as Vista's, you get the backlash they've gotten. I didn't say it wasn't pretty, it's just much less usable than XP. Could it just be that that is what everyone is unhappy about with Vista? I'm getting a little weary and offended at your calling all of us critical, stupid, doubters, etc. etc. People like me use this stuff every day. We're far from stupid. No matter how hard they try to sell this next poorly designed iteration of windows, I am waiting patiently for one worthy of upgrading to.

Go back to the church basement - if you don't like it, hang-on to XP and pretend its 2001. Security out-ranks performance everytime...

They should have hyped Vista better *before* they released it. Instead, a year and a half later, they're spending $300 millon to basically tell people: "Vista: Sorry, you're stuck with it."

dslovejoy -- "Over 78 running processes right out of the box" ??? Care to provide us a list? On my Vista test box, there are currently 40 processes running, and the only thing I've done is turn off Sidebar (which subtracts 2 processes), and installed my antivirus app (which adds 3 processes). The only way you should be getting 78 is if you bought an OEM PC which came loaded with bloatware -- in which case the blame goes to the OEM, not Microsoft. (No, you can't blame Microsoft for not restricting what OEMs install -- because if Microsoft does this they are breaking antitrust law.)

Paul, that's 180 million sold "in" to channel - 180 million sitting on retail shelves, loaded on computers not yet sold at retail. Give it a rest. Nobody is embracing Vista; nobody loves the "Vista experience." Now let's look at those areas of "confusion": Vista SP1 is even less compatible http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/23/1730251 Microsoft Says Vista SP1 Won't Resolve Compatibility Issues http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204801084 Microsoft Says Vista SP1 Blocks Third Party Apps http://www.crn.com/software/206801221 Death match: Windows Vista versus XP Does Vista have what it takes to knock XP off the enterprise desktop? Not by our scorecard. Point by point and blow by blow, we offer 10 reasons enterprises can skip Windows Vista and stick with XP http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/17/12TC-vista-versus-xp_1.html Windows XP outshines Vista in benchmarking test http://news.cnet.com/Windows-XP-outshines-Vista-in-benchmarking-test/2100-1016_3-6220201.html Vista SP1 Performance We saw a few notable performance improvements under some conditions as well as significant performance degradations in others http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9871317-1.html Performance Results Mixed with Vista Service Pack 1 File copying, one of the main performance-related complaints from Vista users, was significantly faster. But other tests showed little improvement and, in two tests, our experience was actually a little better without the service pack installed than with it. http://www.pcworld.com/article/142233/performance_results_mixed_with_vista_service_pack_1.html Vista SP1 doesn't significantly boost performance, slows down certain tasks http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/13/vista-sp1-doesnt-significantly-boost-performance-slows-down-ce/ Boy I hope Microsoft can clear up the "confusion" with more b.s. I hope you're getting a cut of that $300 million ad campaign because your "articles" read like pr pieces.

Speak for yourself - you sound like a typical crApple add campaign... Nice sources: slashdot... Ha ha ha... Windoze 98 was much faster at everything when XP came out as well (at my expense)...

Having recently installed Vista 64 bit, I agree that it was a bit of a change from Vista 32 bit, but if it is a choice you wish to make, don't whine if you haven't done your research. It doesn't support old 16 bit applications, and requires any software that modifies the kernel to be registered, but it is more secure and if you need to get updated hardware and/or software, at least you know that they are more secure as well.

Man, people will just make up any BS and find some ignorant tech writer to go with it. Vista works just fine. Since SP 1, I've had ZERO crashes. Vista works just fine. If you can't get it to run right, there's a book called Windows Vista Secrets that might help you out. I hear the 2nd edition will be out later. Hoping for the next version of Windows to be different? Sorry. Windows Seven is being written using Vista as the core. Thats right, the next version of Windows is Vista R2. Either way, you'll be using Vista. I just think people need something to complain about.