The new Microsoft Ad

I think most geeks out there can agree that Seinfeld is one of the greatest sitcoms ever. Now he's doing commercials for Microsoft, and strange commercials at that. What does buying discount shoes have to do with a software company? Well lets look a little deeper.

The commercial basically revolves around Jerry Seinfeld seeing Bill Gates buying shoes at a discount shoe store. After some dialogue about churros, Gates decides on a pair of shoes, and how they become very comfortable as you break them in, even if they do fit tight at first.

Meanwhile a Mexican family sees the transaction and notes that they are the same shoes they wear. It ends with Jerry and Bill walking to their cars and Gates hinting at a computer made of cake.

What does it all mean? Well from what I can see, Microsoft is trying to market to everyone. Using the shoes as a metaphor for Vista, saying that it takes some getting used to before you become comfortable with it, just like a new pair of shoes.

Having the Mexican family comment on the shoes makes Microsoft (Gates) seem like just a normal person, who buys discount shoes just like the rest of us. They're trying to play off of Apple's ads that make Macs look like something cool people buy, and instead making Microsoft look like the way to go because they are good and affordable for everyone.

The computers made of cake thing is just hinting that Microsoft is still working on some cool stuff. I'm pretty sure making computers out of cake wouldn't be a good idea.

The only problem with this commercial is that Vista is still terrible. It doesn't take years to break in shoes, it takes a few weeks at most. I've had Vista for over a year now on my laptop and not only is it the probable cause for my hard drive dying, but it crashes pretty much daily.

My girlfriend wanted to use the laptop the other day, but she was sitting too far away for the power cord to reach. She asked me to unplug it, and I said it would probably be better if she just moved closer since it freezes half the time when I unplug it. Well she didn't wanna move, so I let her unplug it and sure enough, it froze up.

Did Service Pack 1 correct this problem? Nope. Has it corrected any of the other problems I've been having? Not really. I'm still trying to figure out how the company that made Windows XP, which runs so smoothly, managed to come out with such a troublesome operating system on their next attempt.

Will I get a Mac for my next computer? At this point it's looking like a yes. I don't base my choice of computers on commercials and what they tell me, I base it on performance, and right now Mac is in the lead. Of course an operating system made specifically to run on certain hardware is going to have less problems, but XP proved a conglomeration of parts can still run a good OS just fine.

Unless Microsoft manages to fix Vista, I'm gonna have to go with a Mac for my next computer. Now if only I had an extra $2000 to blow on a new computer...