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Journalists Cover Microsoft, Using Macs

It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire”  at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think [...]

Guide To Black Friday Apple Bargains: Cheap MacBooks, iPods and Accessories Galore

Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB [...]

Review: Voices Is Today’s Best Thing Ever, Grab It Now While It’s Cheap

New on the App Store is Voices from the clever folk at Tap Tap Tap. You can guess what it does.

Open it up, pick a silly voice. Helium is pretty silly. A microphone appears and the app even clears your throat for you (try it, you’ll see what I mean). Now speak your brains, and [...]

Review: Sony Walkman S540 Series Video MP3 Player

Press releases, you will hardly be surprised to hear, are rarely very interesting. But one arrived in my inbox a couple of weeks ago that made me double-take.
“Sony’s S Series Walkman,” it chattered, “is a serious challenger to the iPod Nano.” Gosh, really? Perhaps the Cult had better have a look at one, then, despite [...]

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

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

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!

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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. [...]

    I quite like it actually :)

    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.

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

    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.

    “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!”

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

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

    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.

    :) In a way… I think I like it.

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

    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…

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