I gotta say, Microsoft’s problems are many, and large, and it’s sad that they’re going down a path of copying Apple (poorly), rather than actually working to fix the problems. Dell and Gateway both thought (to their own detriment) that a retail store was the savior of their business. Now it seems Microsoft is doing the same.

PC makers, Microsoft, listen to us, we’re mac people. IT’S NOT THE STORE.

It’s the entire package.

It’s the OS that wasn’t a shitty re-write of System 7,8 or 9

It’s the hardware that isn’t plastic, that feels sturdy in your hand.

It’s the genius bar that will help my mom eject a DVD and help me troubleshoot a faulty Wireless card.

Throwing open a store front to sell Office 2009, Windows 7, and a bunch of lame keyboards and mice, NOT THE SOLUTION.

Oh and hiring someone from Wal-Mart? Really? Is that the image Microsoft wants? Low quality low price leader? Vlasic pickles in 2 gallon jars? Failed MP3 store?

Microsoft has officially jumped the shark I’m afraid.

Windows 7 looks nice, i’ll admit, I played with the beta a bit, but really, Microsoft needs to follow Apple’s lead. START OVER. Sure Apple didn’t start from scratch, Microsoft doesn’t have to either, buy some one else, some one with a better product (that would be anyone), make it Windows X or something.

ok 1. they might as well have taken that 10 mil, and just started mailing random checks to people, for all the good this will do. The Care Bears couldn’t hep with M$’s image. If you’re not a die hard “enterprise” user or windowz fanboy, you simply don’t care what they say, when their products are lame, useless, and/or unstable.

2. “The ads will use some variation of the slogan “Windows, Not Walls,”according to the report, and “stress breaking down barriers thatprevent people and ideas from connecting.” They’ll be just one part ofa much broader $300 million campaign, however, which is said to be oneof the largest in Microsoft’s history.”

Uh, last time I checked, it was Windows that was blocking people from connecting and slowing idea flow down. outlook, fine, but bloated, sharepoint… well it’s sharepoint, almost like a large sucking vortex of information.

“In the competition between PCs and Macs, we outsell Apple 30-to-1. Butthere is no doubt that Apple is thriving,” Microsoft chief executiveSteve Ballmer wrote in the email to employees last month. “Why? Becausethey are good at providing an experience that is narrow but complete,while our commitment to choice often comes with some compromises to theend-to-end experience.”

Again, I think that’s more windows. I will say, Apple has a leg up and it’s not M$’s fault. there’s no knock offs, and no other provider of hardware. If you buy a macbook Pro, it’s made of metal, made the same as all others (except for the random and sadly increasing number of really shitty ones that make it to customers), and it works like all it’s little shiny brothers and sisters. Windowz is running on any POS plastic laptop to come out of any third world, quality be-damned. That’s not M$’s fault.

What’s funny, when I read the headline, my first thought was, “Wasn’t it always a Mac in Seinfeld?”

Sure enough, “Ironically, the computers featured in the 9-year situation comedy Seinfeld, for which the comedian payed a semi-fictional version of himself, were always Macs.“