Bill Gates Under Fire Over Microsoft's new commercial - 2008-10-06

Iyke Odoemenam with reports

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has come under fire over a bizarre new television commercial which has been described as one of the worst adverts in history.

The new Microsoft commercial, in which Gates, who is also the world's richest man, starred alongside popular New York comedian Jerry Seinfeld, has been axed just two weeks after a disastrous launch.

In the 90-second commercial intended to promote Microsoft's new product, Windows Vista, Seinfeld, who was paid $10 million (about N1.15 billion) for the appearance, is showed asking Gates a series of nonsensical questions, apparently regarding the future of computing. The 52-year-old billionaire responds with “signs” that he's in touch with the zeitgeist, including “adjusting his shorts” and doing “the robot”, a dance move previously associated with the beanpole England footballer Peter Crouch.

Strangely, however, the commercial never even for once mentions the words “Windows Vista”, the product it was supposed to be promoting.  

Critics have savaged the commercial, in which Gates and Seinfeld awkwardly trade banter after meeting at a suburban shoe shop, as obtuse, unwatchable, and insufficiently funny, says a report in The Independent of London.

“Its message was ambiguous, they claimed. In a monument to either commercial hubris or professional incompetence, it neglected to once mention Windows Vista, the product it was supposed to be promoting,” the paper said.

According to The Independent, “Whatever its purpose, the decision to pay Seinfeld $10m to star in the campaign also backfired. The comedian's eponymous show was axed 10 years ago, and viewers said that instead of giving Microsoft a fresh image, he succeeded in portraying it as a fading brand from yesteryear.”

The commercial, which some have described as “a shoe-store advert,” was suddenly yanked off the air penultimate Wednesday, September 17.

It has been replaced with a more acceptable commercial in which Seinfeld was replaced by what The Independent described as “several more modish celebrities, including the Desperate Housewives actress Eva Longoria, the singer Pharrell Williams, and the author Deepak Chopra.”

Gates does not star in the new Microsoft campaign, which prominently features the magic words: “Windows Vista.”

Microsoft's management has however insisted that the withdrawn advert had achieved its |primary aim of “getting talked about.” A spokesman for the company claimed that the advert had never been meant to remain on air for longer than a couple of weeks.

“The notion that we're doing some quick thing to cancel (the Seinfeld ad] is actually preposterous,” said Mich Matthews, a senior vice-president in Microsoft's marketing group. “Today was always the day (that would happen). Media buying is something you have to do months in advance.”

Matthews insisted that the Seinfeld ad, which first aired in the United States during the famously expensive half-time slot in a round of Sunday afternoon American football games, was designed as an “icebreaker,” with a limited shelf life.

Its purpose was to grab people's attention in a tongue-in-cheek way without the pressure of having to talk about the product, he said.

“We wanted to be sure that when we do come out with our major message, 'Life Without Walls', more people would be paying attention than they would otherwise,” he told the Associated Press, adding: “My goodness, did we do that!”

The Independent described the new Microsoft campaign as “Gates's latest attempt to steal thunder from his more modish rival Apple, which has grabbed market share in recent years with a series of celebrity-based commercials portraying Microsoft's product as both outdated and unfashionable.”

Meanwhile, Gates and Seinfeld have continued to attract ridicule on video-sharing internet sites.

Many viewers have debated the purpose of their conversation about unfashionable shoes in the failed commercial, and say they were baffled by a short sequence in which Seinfeld is shown soaping himself down in a shower, while fully clothed.

“Even ad industry pundits, who normally applaud and even offer awards for inventiveness, were nonplussed by the commercial, which was scripted by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, an agency with a reputation for oddness,” said The Independent.

It quoted one pundit, Abbey Klaassen, as writing in Ad Age: “Huh? You could be forgiven for not knowing what the heck Microsoft's new ad was about.”

Working at Dousing the Microsoft Vista Fire

Rotimi Adekunle

Since its introduction in January 2007 after a long delay, the Microsoft windows vista has been met with mixed feelings from a cross section of consumers globally. For so many, its digital and graphics features are second to none, while for some others, its non compatibility with most daily application software is heartache very hard to put up with. As a business solution package developed to transform the experience of buying and using personal computers that run Microsoft software, vista represents a big shift from its predecessor, Windows XP, because it requires a lot of new drivers to function as a unique experience. This accounts for diverse utility perception of the vista product and the image controversy it has  generated.

    According to Mr. Akin Akinwolere, Technology Specialist-Infrastructure Solution, Microsoft Nigeria, who admits to the controversy over the product during an interview session at Microsoft office, Victoria Island, Lagos, “the problem with vista is that, the rest of the industry was not ready when Vista finally arrived”. Declaring Microsoft as a forward looking organization and windows vista as a business solution tool designed for modern business challenges, Mr. Akinwolere contends that “Windows Vista was released because we know that in the industries, the trends are changing, and we want to provide our customers with rich tools that can help them to do their jobs, and also provide them the platform to be able to grow their businesses into the future. Microsoft spent a lot of time and standardization to move from windows XP, a very successful product, to windows Vista, as business dynamics change along with requirements. So windows Vista was designed to meet the challenges of today and prepare the enterprise for the future”. He added.

    After the release of windows vista, consumers have complained about non readiness of some of its hardware, while some say they need to get more hardware and some of the hardware did not have drivers.  Others complained that some of the software was not yet ready and that the product is too heavy, even prone to crashes. Most of these complaints by consumers and users Microsoft puts at the doorsteps of its hardware production partners. However, the Technology Specialist-Infrastructure Solution officer affirming Microsoft's position, discloses that “rather than seeing these as problems, we went back and decided what to do to help our customer to have the right access to the tool. So Microsoft engaged with different industry manufactures; the hardware manufacturer, the software manufacturers, we brought their developers in, our developers went to their offices, we sat down with them and we came up and certify thousands of applications for vista compatibility” he explains.

     Windows vista is the latest Microsoft operating system for clients, it comes with 32-bit and 64-bit hardware. Window Vista according to the specialist has  different editions for different categories of computer users.  Its objective according to him is to further enhance ease of operation, use and productivity to the users.  

 The Vista home basic is for simple and domestic users to do basic work at home, vista home premium supports a lots more in terms of graphics, movie making, video and games, vista business edition which supports networking across different computers, then vista enterprise for organization with vista assurance, or that have enterprise agreement with Microsoft. Only the vista enterprise cannot be purchased off the shelf, unlike its other counterparts. Among its features are standard antispyware which is a security against problems like identity theft. It also comes with internet explorer seven, with lockdown mode, which assists to detect if a website is real and more, and Bit locker, a very useful tool that assist to encrypt data in case PC is stolen. It came with more unique features.        

While conducting this interview, a demo conference confirmed a declaration on Microsoft website stressing that most of the frustrating technical problems with Vista, have been resolved with Microsoft release of service pack 1 for windows vista. It is downloadable at www.microsoft.com.

According to Technology Specialist, the service pack 1 has the capabilities to fix most the problems that were in the initial edition of windows vista. His words “as at today, we have certified over 79,000 applications that were not running on vista as at last year, but now they now run on vista. We have Service Pack 1 which has fixed almost all the problems we had in windows vista, and we have also certified all the hardware; the cameras, external hard drivers, the USBs and scanners, and all other plug and play devices.”

    The windows vista service park 1 is an update to windows vista that addresses key feedbacks from Microsoft customers. Service pack 1 addresses specific reliability and performance issues, supports new type of hardware, and adds support for several emerging standards. The windows vista service pack could be expected in series. 

      It has however been observed that Microsoft could be at the verge of losing parts of its 90 percent monopoly of global window market to Apple's Macintosh operating system, running only on Apple machines, especially in United States. Microsoft's stumbles have also given momentum to the shift of software away from the PC and onto the Web. Web-based programs for e-mail, spreadsheets and other tasks can be run in a browser, undermining the values of the underlying operating system. Indeed, Google's entry into the browser market recently is an implicit declaration that the browser is increasingly supplanting the PC operating system as a strategic computing gateway.

    But that seem not to be of worry to Microsoft which has dispatched Corps of its engineers to their various partners in the software and hardware manufacturing industry, in a bid to remedy the situation and ensure product compatibility. For example to tweak hardware and software to make Vista PCs faster and less crash-prone. Microsoft is also through its Senior Vice President for Windows Strategy and Marketing, Mr. Bill Veghte, and his team of experts taking the company's windows solution beyond PC compatibility. The team which called their mission FTP 168, short for Free the People 24x7  meaning the freedom to do all manner of things with Windows on a PC, a cell phone or over the Web, at any time, say its campaign is meant to move the Windows brand decisively beyond the PC, so the business can thrive even if the PC becomes less important. Microsoft believes that its broad reach gives it the upper hand against rivals like Apple or Google.

     To follow up this effort, Microsoft Company has packaged an advertising blitz intended to educate consumers about what the company's software can actually do. The commercial which began some weeks ago, is a multimillion dollars `air cover' mend to run over several years. According to Mr. Bill Veghte, the ad is probably going to be the most lucrative franchise in history. “We are in a very different position with Vista than we were even six months ago,” said Mr. Veghte. “And there are a lot of people holding forth with criticism of Windows Vista that have not used Vista recently”. He concluded.

Responding to this development, and how Microsoft hopes to cope with their competitors, Mr. Akin also confirm that “through reputable excellence service, product design and delivery, Microsoft will maintain top position among its rivals”.

Microsoft is a global software manufacturing company that makes much of its profits from sales of windows products (Software serving as gateway to PCs easy accessibility),In year ended in June alone, Microsoft's windows group generated revenue of nearly $16.9 billion and operating profit of more than $13 billion, a phenomenon 77 percent margin.