Bill Gates and Jerry Steinfield Commercials

[Ancient Dragon]

Bill Gates and Jerry Steinfield commercials

[GrimJack]

They are just so 1980s lame - what were they thinking?

[Ene Uran]

Jerome Allen "Jerry" Seinfeld is funny, Bill Gates is the opposite. The result is big fat ZERO.

[vmanes]

AD, I want those 4 1/2 minutes of my life back!!!!!!

Do they really think those are going to win friends and influence people?

[Aia]

Well, it appears this is as far as it will go. It is being canceled.

[Ancient Dragon]

Well, it appears this is as far as it will go. It is being canceled.

Best news I've heard all week :)

[Aia]

Best news I've heard all week :)

Microsoft. Making people happy one at a time. ;)
They should adopt that slogan.

[Aia]

Great, another fantastic idea in ads.
Some might say it is all slander, but this one proves it. The best Microsoft does, it is to copy.

[GrimJack]

The really odd thing about the Mac ads is that everyone likes John Hodgman - he gets live-blogged and twittered everywhere he goes. When he stopped into a Mac store (well, I suppose you have all heard John talk about how his fame surprises him)... No one likes the the Mac guy. Does the ad sell Macs? It seems sort of mean-spirited. Now of course, the ads have been parodied for Political education and to try and frame how the election campaign is working. The ad seems to be doing everything but selling Macs.

Any Mac users here? Do you identify with the Mac guy?

[vmanes]

The whole "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ad line is really just hanging on to old stereotypes, that the Mac appeals to the hip, arty type and that the Wintel PC is just for stuffy old business people stuck in cubicle farms.

Once upon a time, (like about 15 years ago) those distinctions still had merit - Macs did have superiority in the graphics arts uses, and not much available for the knowledge worker. Even before the Mac went to an Intel processor, those dividing lines had fallen by the wayside - Macs and PCs used much common graphics hardware (so the PC could do anything the Mac could) and major apps in both camps were ported to the other platform, or good equivalents were available.

Now, it's just religious fervor that keeps anyone firmly in either camp.

I've been a PC/Windows user all along - mostly because that's the environment my workplace has used. Also, because that's what I could afford. I've been getting to know Mac this summer, off and on, and it's different from working in Windows, but strangely the same in many ways. Steve Jobs thinks just as strongly that he knows exactly what you need and how it should be set up (and you don't get to change it) as Bill Gates does. They are both desktop tyrants, in their own ways.

So, would someone take a photo of the PC guy and a photo of the Mac guy, morph them together so we can be done with it all. And get on to something important, like telling more lipstick on pig jokes.

</rant>