There is a particularly brilliant Apple ad available on the NYTimes website this first week in September. The ad mocks Windows Vista. It is ironic because just a few days before, the NYTimes ran an article that might as well have been written by Redmonds PR department. It purported to show that Microsoft was putting the polish on a new and improved Windows Vista which only needed a half a billion dollar ad campaign to convince users they cant get anything better, so live with Vista. Over time like Mojave, you will grow to like Vista because Microsoft is not going to allow its better version of Windows to be bought any more. The old familiar, Windows XP is 40 percent faster, more software familiar and much more hardware compatible than Vista. But none of these issues were discussed in the kid-glove piece offered by the NYTimes.
So the irony is the Apple ad, because it skewers Vista so effectively running right on the banner headlines of the NYTimes, but also puts the kibosh on the NYTimes reporting.
If you get a chance, go see it right away – because this one probably is costing Apple a pretty penny and I doubt it will last through this weekend.
But there is a second irony, just as Delicious an Apple if not more so. Apple has allowed the prices on its computer to become 3 to 4 times more than on the equivalent PCs. So users wanting to use Apples trumpeted OS/X Leopard operating system will have to pay at least double the price of the equivalent PC running Vista. Let me assure readers the Apple has won a Pyrrhic victory – yes Leopard is nice. But is it worth spending $600 to 2500 extra for ? In fact this blog has already examined how badly a whole array of IT vendors including Apple have stumbled in failing to take advantage of Microsofts full frontal nudity attack on its own brand with Vista.
And you thought only national politicians like Joe Lieberman could engage in surreal scenes like that of a Democrat addressing the Republican National Convention 3 days after he had been dumped by the Republican elites from being his longtime “friend”, John McCains Vice Presidential running mate. My gosh, the IT World is matching the folly of politicians and beginning to imitate the art of Bizarro cartoons.