[Blog]Apple whines about Microsoft "Laptop Hunter" ads

[Lonestar]

From Wired

Apple Begged Microsoft to Stop Running ‘Laptop Hunter’ Ads
By Charlie Sorrel July 16, 2009 | 7:07 am | Categories: Miscellaneous

Microsoft has finally worked out how to push Apple’s buttons. According to Microsoft COO Kevin Turner, the company got a call from Apple asking it to stop running the Laptop Hunter ads after the recent price drop on the Mac product line. These ads, you will remember, show “real” people who want to buy Macs but can’t afford them, and they end up “happy” with a cheap, plastic Windows machine. Turner says the ads are working:

And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business. (Applause.)

I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, “Is this a joke? Who are you?”

This is great. You really know when someone is hurting when they call you up and beg you to stop. So will Microsoft be stopping? Of course not: “we’re just going to keep running them and running them and running them,” said Turner.

Of course, he didn’t take long to lapse into more characteristic patterns. “[We]’re going to showcase this opportunity of Windows simplicity, choice, value, and partners,” said Turner.

This comes after the news that Microsoft is planning to open up retail stores right next to Apple stores, which like miniature design museums, and people hang out in them as if they were coffee shops. Is Microsoft planning on playing the dollar card in its stores, too, by only selling the cheapest machines? We don’t know, but we do know that we love to be on the sidelines of a good punch-up.

The "Cheapest Machines" Jesus Christ.

You also have winners in the comments section claiming that Windows machines have only 256MB and that's why they are cheaper

[Davey]

Ha ha ha. Sounds like Microsoft is trying to get even with Macintosh for those runs of smarmy "I'm-a-Mac-and-I'm-a-PC" PC-bashing ads.

Thinking back about this, I like that Solaris 10 "No Limits" commercial. The message I got from that commercial ran along the lines of "I'm awesome, and Solaris 10 will help me do my job better." These Mac and PC ads are more like "Buy our shizzle because the other guys suxors lolololol rofflcopter!!" and that kind of negativity doesn't sit right with me.

[Themightytom]

Ha ha ha. Sounds like Microsoft is trying to get even with Macintosh for those runs of smarmy "I'm-a-Mac-and-I'm-a-PC" PC-bashing ads.

Thinking back about this, I like that Solaris 10 "No Limits" commercial. The message I got from that commercial ran along the lines of "I'm awesome, and Solaris 10 will help me do my job better." These Mac and PC ads are more like "Buy our shizzle because the other guys suxors lolololol rofflcopter!!" and that kind of negativity doesn't sit right with me.

I actually think Apple was HELPING PCs by having John Hodgson represent them. I still like the one where he's hiding in a pizza box.

[TheLostVikings]

I can march down to the store and pick up a $400 PC laptop, brand new - with 1 GB of RAM or more and a big hard drive. Macbooks don't even come close to that kind of value for the money.

Classic competition at its best.

Especially since the current economic climate gives it a success+4 bonus for free.

[Jon]

What I like about the ads is that for a change they kind of are just up front and honest about what's going on. They even have the guy saying he really loves the look fo the mac but it's just too expensive, etc- they just show machines with comparable specs and how much cheaper they are. I think lately there's definitely a shift in perception on Microsoft versus Apple and MS are capitalising on it well- if the Windows 7 pre-order take up is anything to by anyway, I read there were more pre-orders for that in the first few hours it became available than Vista got in 13 weeks before it was released.

[Starglider]

This is a win-win. Not only is it always amusing to see Apple smugness (and extortionate pricing) take a hit, Microsoft is hastening its own decline by focusing on price. Linux-based systems that avoid the 'Windows tax' are always going to win price comparisons and are already starting to encroach into the netbook segment (after a few false starts). Google timed their entry into this segment carefully, and the unveiling of Chrome OS has clearly ratcheted up the anxiety level at Remond.

[Nephtys]

This is a win-win. Not only is it always amusing to see Apple smugness (and extortionate pricing) take a hit, Microsoft is hastening its own decline by focusing on price. Linux-based systems that avoid the 'Windows tax' are always going to win price comparisons and are already starting to encroach into the netbook segment (after a few false starts). Google timed their entry into this segment carefully, and the unveiling of Chrome OS has clearly ratcheted up the anxiety level at Remond.

Except most people don't know a thing about how to use Linux, and only hear about it through what their computer-savvy geek friends say. And thusly, are intimidated by it.

I think they'll pay 40 bucks to have Windows on a new laptop without worrying much about it at all. I know I will, just for convenience in knowing every app I have will run without me having to work with my configuration.

[Starglider]

Except most people don't know a thing about how to use Linux, and only hear about it through what their computer-savvy geek friends say. And thusly, are intimidated by it.

Of course, otherwise it would already be much more popular. Linux only started being a viable mass-market option once it could 'just work' for novice users, which I would say only happened with Ubuntu. Chrome is actually the same concept as OS X - pretty, intuitive wrapper over a unix kernel - but free (and less functional in the launch version, of course).

I think they'll pay 40 bucks to have Windows on a new laptop without worrying much about it at all. I know I will, just for convenience in knowing every app I have will run without me having to work with my configuration.

You will and so will I, but we're 'power users' by consumer laptop standards. A significant and growing fraction of the user base only wants to get their twitters and youtubes and facebooks and mp3s and gmails through a cheap applicance that has no fiddly settings to mess with. They have no legacy apps - amazingly a significant minority of computer users no longer know what an 'app' is - and this is where the various 'netbook OS' concepts such as Chrome OS are targeted. You may recall the whole 'web appliance' concept being tried in the late 90s/early 2000s and failing fairly dismally (like 'network computing' about a decade earlier), but the game has changed enough for the idea to become viable, albeit only for one market segment.