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A New Kind Of Heist: Six Apps For Free

Those crazy MacHeisters are at it again, and this time the deal is even harder to resist.
The first ever MacHeist Nano won’t cost you a penny. You can download, without charge, fully licensed copies of ShoveBox, WriteRoom, Twitterific, TinyGrab, and Hordes of Orcs. If 500,000 people take part (which I think is a pretty safe [...]

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Most Embarrassingly Bad Microsoft Internal Video Ever. UPDATE: On Purpose!

9:36 am, April 17th, 2008, Pete Mortensen

UPDATE: Microsoft says this was their attempt to make the worst internal video ever. MMM…yeah. Interesting spin…

I’ve been wrapping up an all-intensive project at work lately, but I have to break my silence for this: “Rocking Our Sales” by Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band. I don’t really know where to begin. I guess I will just say this. I have no idea if Apple makes lame Bruce Springsteen parody music videos to inspire its channel sales teams, but if it does, I have to assume that it uses better lyrics than “Talk up our Microsoft Application Virtualization…See what’s on employee’s laptops with AIS and MDOP!”

EPIC FAIL, MS! And if anyone is actually inspired to sell more Vista based on this, really think about switching your job. I mean, damn.

Via Daring Fireball

Posted by Pete Mortensen in Advertising, Humor | Comment on this article

About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is the communications lead for growth strategy firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

Email the author | Read more posts by Pete Mortensen.

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13 comments

    [...] “Rocking Our Sales” por Bruce ServicePack y los Vista Street Band componen este fabuloso video para promocionar Windows Vista. Jajaja, lo mejor de todo es que Microsoft dice que esa era su intención, hacer el video mas embarazoso y mal hecho de la historia. ¿ Alguna similitud con sus sistemas operativos ? Vía | cultofmac. [...]

    El video interno más vergonzoso de Microsoft — maclatino.com, on April 17th, 2008 at 11:08 am

    I quite like it actually :)

    Adrian Milliner, on April 17th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

    Excuse me while I stick forks in my eyes and ears…

    …ah that’s better.

    Other than BitLocker Man I have a hard time they spent so much money trying to be bad. It’s kind of funny though, if they were trying to be bad then they did a poor job of producing something that transcends bad to become good.

    Barry, on April 17th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

    And Vista was their effort to make the worst OS ever. On purpose.

    No-doz, on April 17th, 2008 at 3:13 pm

    Eh, It’s on par for cheesy internal videos made by marketing (usually for play at company off-sites and meetings) – I’ve seen worse, trust me. ;) Usually all the employees just grin and bear it because they don’t want to be seen as “not team players.” Pretend to be inspired, and you’re on track for a promotion!

    That being said, “purposeful attempt?” Seriously? Either the folks at Microsoft have more of a self-deprecating sense of humor than I could ever give them credit for, or their marketing folks need to spend less time on videos and more time on spin.

    phoenix, on April 17th, 2008 at 5:15 pm

    “It was on purpose” The line that every nerd comes up with after the school talent show when he shows himself to be a clumsy, untalented oaf. “It was SUPPOSED to be funny…. Duh!”

    iburl, on April 17th, 2008 at 8:28 pm

    I do think it’s marginally funny just because they spoofed Springsteen (AKA the most generic rock superstar).

    C Rolls, on April 18th, 2008 at 6:25 am

    it’s so patetic…i don’t know WFT Microsoft whit this… this an joke? or is true? Microsoft Suck

    kike, on April 18th, 2008 at 7:30 am

    On a serious note, what is it about Microsoft product branding? MS bought a company called Softricity that had a product called SoftGrid. Great names that stick in the mind. So why rebrand it as “Microsoft Application Virtualization”?

    MDOP (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack) contains some great products (ie it fixes some Windows horrors) but what does the name mean? It might be a bit better than its predecessor, DOPSA (Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance) by a few millimetres.

    Some people at MS do get it — BitLocker is a good product with a great name. Possibly you can attribute that to the product manager, Russ Humphries, a smart and charismatic Brit. The server virtualization product, now unmemorably named Hyper-V, was called Veridian during development. I’m not a Trekkie, but I still think that Veridian was a better product name.

    As Fake Steve has said so many times, these people have no taste.

    Phil Beesley, on April 19th, 2008 at 5:58 am

    :) In a way… I think I like it.

    Alex, on April 19th, 2008 at 10:32 am

    I was embarrassed to watch it, and I’m home alone!

    Ramón, on April 20th, 2008 at 11:29 am

    Wow. I think my IQ has just been knocked down a few points. I need to go watch an Apple ad to bring it back up. Microsoft seems very able to make me love anything NOT PC more and more…maybe they should just stop marketing all together. They might be better off that way…

    Shawn, on April 21st, 2008 at 10:32 am

    [...] Via [Cult of Mac] [...]

    Dario Salvelli’s Blog » Blog Archive » Stupid Microsoft Viral Video of Vista SP1, on April 23rd, 2008 at 3:02 am