Comments on: Confirmed: Microsoft cutting Jerry Seinfeld ads tomorrow

By: RealityDude

RealityDude — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:01:36 +0000

I have purchased at least 5 high-end MS based Dell computers for home and school. Each with the latest bells and whistles (new chips, high speed buses etc.). MS based computers systematicaly degrade in performance to the point that no amount of “clean up”, anti-spam, anti-virus or anti-whatever software can do anything to make it useful. My latest disaster was when Dell Support was remotely installing a fix to protect me from a certain virsus that infected my system. As tech support (India) flashed screen after screen in real-time installing fixes, a virus was downloaded and seized my computer before my eyes. Great! I ended up whiping the disc clean and re-installing the OS (multiple times). My son’s high-end Dell crashed the first day of college. He had the disc drive replaced every year until the 4 year warranty ran out. He has a Vista based very expensive Dell laptop for law school. We are switching to Apple! I have spent enough on support, software, and hardware from and Dell and MS. Enough! I don’t care how slick your commercials are. It is still CRAP!

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:19:24 +0000

@Jim Jones: all of those problems have been fixed, but patches are not necessarily a 100% way to fix a problem, since the customers will be already pissed and may have already screwed their system by the time they get them, also it’s difficult to make sure that people will even get the patches or install them correctly, either way, if you buy a new copy of vista today with the patches in it, or slipstream an install, you won’t see those problems (don’t know about this live mail thing, do you just use any app that appears on your computer? you couldn’t be bothered with outlook or thunderbird or just using the web? “OOOOOH! HP photo manager, it’s gotta be a killer app!”)

Anyway, Mac had a great campaign going smearing PCs and making customers think that they were being lame and rigid for using them, that they were not doing something socially acceptable. This deception seemed very effective and probably increased Apple’s tiny tiny desktop and laptop market share, a tiny tiny bit at least.

Microsoft is not running out of money for their ads, and they do know about a lot of the problems in their software, they just do risk analysis to see if they should release anyway, and the guys who did this analysis for Vista f’ed up a bit, but guess what, they still made money.

That said, the Seinfeld commercial left me asking what that had to do with PCs, and couldn’t have significantly helped Microsoft’s cause, but the new commercial looks significantly better and shuts up the Apple message fairly effectively (lots of diverse people, some nerds, some business people, some with awesome jobs, some who sell fish, use PCs).

By: PCLicious Video Tutorials

PCLicious Video Tutorials — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:11:47 +0000

Weird I seen one of these commercials yesterday & was like what the heck? They truly were the odd couple & judging by the American Express ads of past with Seinfield, I know he wasn’t cheap!! Interested in learning computer tips by video demonstration? Please check my website out: PCLicious Video Tutorials

By: PCLicious Video Tutorials

PCLicious Video Tutorials — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:04:06 +0000

Funny I seen one of these commercials yesterday & was like what the heck? They truly were the odd couple & judging by the American Express ads of past with Seinfield, I know he wasn’t cheap! Interested in learning computer tips by video demonstration? Please check my website out: PCLicious Video Tutorials

By: The Earthman

The Earthman — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:47:29 +0000

The very fact that you guys are talking about the ads proves one thing-you saw them and they generating a buzz. Don’t you think that is exactly what Gates had in mind? DUH! Where is your spirit of fun anyway? Either you get it or you don’t.

By: The Earthman

The Earthman — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:47:29 +0000

By: ajadoniz

ajadoniz — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:41:49 +0000

a lot of people on campus and ppl i kno like them. i personally like them too. and besides, word is that these ads were NOT cancelled (jerry is still in, yay!).

By: Sugarbomb

Sugarbomb — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:08:44 +0000

Maybe not so funny as a Seinfeld episode. But what do you want for 10 million? Definitely more entertaining than the smug little Mac ads.

Microsoft should pay 10 million dollars to have the fat PC guy do a smack down on the “cool” Mac guy. That would make me go out and buy Vista.

By: red014

red014 — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:06:21 +0000

I think they need to do the following three things…

1. Hire the fat PC guy himself from the Mac ads. He makes me like PC’s more.
2. Get the word out that when someone blindly installs software from RandomSoftwareManufacturerX.com and the computer crashes, it’s not Microsoft’s fault.
3. Get the word out that when someone blindly buys a computer manufactured by some no name company in Micronesia for $198 at WalMart that you get what you pay for.

I swear Steve Jobs could pull a Billy Madison and say “You ‘aint cool unless you pee your pants!” and then thousands of people would walk the streets of New York with white earphones and wet crotches.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:06:05 +0000

Wow, Seinfeld is even less funny than I remember… and that’s saying something…

By: Jason Mosley

Jason Mosley — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:58:23 +0000

I dont get it? What are they selling?

By: Peter da Silva

Peter da Silva — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:30:14 +0000

So they’re gonna have an “I’m a PC” lookalike getting all defensive about the Mac ads?

That’s REALLY gonna make them look like boobs.

By: DT

DT — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:40:21 +0000

Aaaaww! I liked them. I thought they were fun – kinda dumb, but fun.

By: fawkesey

fawkesey — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:46:48 +0000

Who’d have thought, Bill Gates can act! But those ads are really bad – the Apple guys must have wet their pants laughing when they saw them..& Seinfeld was laughing all the way to the bank too!

By: curtis

curtis — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:17:09 +0000

I actually liked the second commercial. I think people we’re being a bit too harsh with the videos. Sure the first one was way odd, but the second one was a lot better. I could almost believe this cutting off of this campaign as being part of the plan. It got all of our attention it looks like.

By: Spitefulgod

Spitefulgod — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 07:04:13 +0000

:( I really liked the ads as well, although only a few companies with huge brand names are capable of pulling of ads that have nothing to do with the product and Microsoft is one of them. Brilliant advertising IMHO. As for the Vista basher, go and die, Vista is the best OS MS have ever produced (after 2008 server), just go and spend $$$ on some crap Mac and I’ll spend half of that on a Vista PC with thrice the Power!

By: Liam

Liam — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 06:39:21 +0000

This article has been confirmed not to be true multiple Microsoft news websites have confirmed that the ads are not being axed and crunchgear is just posting incorrect facts.

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 05:41:36 +0000

I am a fan of Microsoft, Vista and Seinfeld, but I gotta say those ads suck. MS was better off without any ads than those.

I read that the ads are sorta a response to the Mac ads, these ads seem to enforce the idea in the Mac ads. It makes Microsoft look like a shoddy company that has no idea what they are doing.

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 05:16:53 +0000

I heard Jerry had signed a contract worth $10 mil. Was that just for those two commercials!!??

By: Jim Jones

Jim Jones — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:41:05 +0000

What could possibly salvage ‘Vista; (AKA “Windows Not Responding”) at this point except:
Making the OS work reliably
Making the Windows Explorer work reliably
Making the Internet Explorer work reliably
Making the Windows Live Mail work reliably
????