Monday, November 16, 2009

Windows 7 UK adverts 2

Two new Windows 7 adverts have cropped up and boo was this a failure on the marketing side. To be blunt if they'd shown these (and only these) adverts I wouldn't have been able to write this.

A mother illustrates the easy way to schedule her children's computer time and a father shows how easy it is to hook up all his electronics. Most importantly both do it with some degree of humour.

11 comments:

Orphi said...

I just find the self-important arrogance of it so annoying!

But then, I guess it still just annoys me that M$ paint themselves as these visionary leaders of technology when in reality they have held technology back by decades.

FlipC said...

And then on the other hand they managed to popularise the PC market by producing a product that for the mundane processes is easy to use; that in turn increased the hardware market etc.

And I still think DirectX was one of the best things they've ever done for gaming.

Orphi said...

[Insert comment here about the IBM PC and it's assorted flaws which we're now stuck with.]

I'm not sure DirectX is really that different from OpenGL. But whatever.

I don't think of M$ products as being especially easy to use. Indeed, most of then seem to be made unecessarily complicated, presumably to make them look more “powerful”.

They have at least reached the point where most of their products kinda work most of the time. (Of course, everybody else did that 20 years ago…)

Still, love them or hate them, M$ will be around forever, and there's nothing that anybody will ever be able to do to stop them, so why worry about it? *sigh*

FlipC said...

Direct3D is the equivalent of OpenGL, DirectX covers the full hardware range from mice to sound cards. Made a big difference.

Ease of use - compare to command line interfaces. Oh sure there was X, but everyone had their own ideas how to present that; and MacOS only ran on its own hardware. Windows was consistent and ran on 'cheap' computers. Factor in training and Windows made sense. Then costs went down and it made sense that the home PC ran the same as the office PC.

Sure it was flaky, but at the time what other options were available that didn't require massive hardware upgrades or re-training?

Orphi said...

OK, so DirectX is something of a win then.

As for the command line — the Amiga had a GUI years before Windows even existed. It had multitasking years before Windows existed. It ran on hardware capable of things the IBM PC could only dream about until almost a decade later. It came with an extensive, clearly written user manual. What's not to like?

(Unfortunately, then the company making it went bankrupt, the hardware stood still, and death quickly ensued. But that was an economic failure, not any kind of technical failure.)

I can't comment on the Mac. To this day, I've never actually seen one, except on TV. I gather they're quite expensive though. (Not a criticism you could level at the Amiga.)

I think your comment “what other options were available” just about sums it up. M$'s entire history seems to be based on preventing people using superior products, rather than actually producing superior products themselves. Much cheaper to cheat the opposition out of the market rather than beat them in a fair fight.

Still, as I say, you can't do anything about it, so it's not worth getting upset about.

FlipC said...

Again though AmigaOS was tied to hardware, which like the current Macs make them more expensive. Expense-wise pay about a third more for an equivalent PC, but you do get a tight hardware configuration.

As for not seeing one, you've got to have an Apple store in MK surely? ... Yep one in Midsummer place go and have a play.

Oh and yeah it's a matter of record that Microsoft played dirty to retain their position, but it was a question of luck; being in the right place at the right time.

Orphi said...

How is MS Windows not “tied to the hardware” of the IBM-compatible PC?

At the time when AmigaOS was extent, for £300 you could get an Amiga 1200 with 8-bit graphics, 24-bit colour, digital audio and a 7 MHz register-rich processor, running a geniune pre-emptive multitasking OS with a native GUI. At the same time, PCs still had that stupid CGA 4-colour graphics and the only sound was a beep — and even that cost a fortunate.

Unfortunately, as history will tell, the IBM PC became wildly popular and the company behind the Amiga screwed up. And that was the end of that.

As for the Mac… It is actually kinda tempting. But the price tag is absurd. (Especially considering that today, a Mac is almost but not quite identical to a normal PC.) Even though Warp keeps trying to tell me that a PC of the same specifications would be more expensive. ;-)

FlipC said...

Because if you wanted to buy an Amiga you did so from Amiga, if you want to buy a Mac you do so from Apple. If you want to buy an IBM-compatible you buy it from... heck you can make from scratch.

Okay price-wise a Mac Pro will cost £1,899. A Dell Alienware Aurora with equivalent specs but a better video card will cost £1,349. What did I say "about a third more".

Orphi said...

So what you really mean is “tied to one hardware vendor”? That I can agree with.

I wonder — is it physically possible to make a PC that looks as shiny as a Mac?

FlipC said...

Yeah okay pedant :-P

Sure you can make a PC look like something other than the old chrome/beige box. Take a look at the Alienware stuff or visit XCase even the bog standard companies have worked out the benefits of shiny; run an image search for "Acer Defender"

FlipC said...

Forgot to mention that you can just run to the plain cool too.