Microsoft ads to promote Mac!!!

[Shrek]

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-961496.html?tag=fd_top_10

Microsoft ads to promote Mac

By Ian Fried
Staff Writer CNET News.com
October 9, 2002, 6:55 PM PT

Microsoft is planning to announce on Thursday a new advertising campaign touting the Macintosh version of its Office suite.

The ads, which play up the ability of Macs and PCs to get along, will begin showing up Saturday in magazines geared at Macintosh, business, technology and design audiences, according to an e-mail from a Microsoft representative. One ad features a Mac and a PC playing chess by a pool, while another shows a Mac and PC eating Chinese take-out while watching a late-night movie.

"Macs and PCs have never been so compatible," according to the headline on the ads. The ads encourage Mac users to go to a new Web site, www.officeformac.com, to download a 30-day free trial of Office.

Microsoft, which until recently had been critical of Apple's efforts to pitch Mac OS X, has been stepping up its marketing effort for the Mac version of Office. Last week, Microsoft and Apple announced a promotion in which new Mac buyers can get a copy of Office for $199, about half the regular price.

In July, Microsoft said it had sold 300,000 copies of the Mac OS X version, less than half of the 750,000 copies the company had expected to sell by that point. Recently Microsoft executives have said they have been more pleased with Office sales, but they would not say how many copies have been sold.

The new campaign, which Microsoft says is evidence of its commitment to the Mac, were designed by McCann Erickson.

A recent five-year deal between Apple and Microsoft that required the software giant to develop Mac versions of Office and Internet Explorer recently came to a close. Microsoft has reiterated its support for the Mac but has said it will only commit to new software updates one version at a time.

A Microsoft representative was not immediately available for further comment.

YIPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

 

[strider42]

Re: Microsoft ads to promote Mac!!!

I've got to say, this is really cool. Its a good move for everyone involved. MS probably makes as much profit from each copy of office it sells as it does from each copy of windows, so they could give up market share to mac and still make the same or even more money. And apple of course get microsoft itself dispelling one of the major myths about the mac (incompatibility).

 

[Mr. Anderson]

That's a nice price - good to see they're doing it.

I find it a bit entertaining that they're way below numbers on the OSX version, but the bottom line is that everyone wins.

 

[MrMacMan]

I call them bluff, good for them you say, it all has a hidden meaning.
Now they can never say they 'never made an ad supporting another operating system with their products in it' statment for the court case.
Besides that the case will never finish, this will just make it harder to make a case against them.
Very tricky they are, yes...

 

[strider42]

Originally posted by MrMacman
I call them bluff, good for them you say, it all has a hidden meaning.
Now they can never say they 'never made an ad supporting another operating system with their products in it' statment for the court case.
Besides that the case will never finish, this will just make it harder to make a case against them.
Very tricky they are, yes...

no case has to be made against them, they've already been found guilty. All that is left si the sanctions, which will probably end up merely being government watching over their business practices and making some things open to outside developers. The verdict itself is not relaly in dispute anymore.

 

[Beej]

Remeber guys, this is Microsoft. My money is on them hyping Office to Mac users, just to drop support for it on the Mac in a year or so.

 

[shadowfax]

i have to admit that while office is way overpriced, it's a fabulous word processing etc suite. if you give it the time of day that is. so now the price has indirectly gone down, i am happy. sort of. they should sell it straight up for 200$ though. that would be reasonable.

i can imagine why they got such disappointing sales. selling stuff like that with no obvious reason for the price to be so high just begs pirates to get it illegitimately.

that's kind of the irony of microsoft. gates is passionate about anti piracy because when he was a maturing businessman in the '80s there was widespread sharing of code, because it's easy to. and it still is. but he tries to make it less so. he was so mad, because you can't pirate hardware. ohhh, the hardware makers earn all their money; you can't make illegal copies of a pentium with a CD burner! and now here is M$, spending untold millions on making their software hard to pirate, when about 90% of the problem could be solved by selling it at a reasonable price.

anyways. that's some hell of a rant. and it's funny, i was just thinking, the music industry is in exactly the same fix. their anti-copying measures don't increase revenue. it expends it, all the while pissing off honest users who want to abide by the fair use policies, thus further cutting revenue. it's a vicious circle, one these dumb big industries find themselves in so easily... and who really pays for it? we do.

 

[e-coli]

Those ads have been out for weeks. The Oct. Macworld has one on the inside cover. It's actually kinda cute.

 

[blackpeter]

Yeah. Somehow, I still think this has more to do with the anti-trust "bottom line." I agree with the previous statement about them having something to point to when it comes to supporting alternative OS'es.

Same 'ole M$.

On the positive side, maybe MS is learning that there are still plenty of ways for it to become filthy rich in a multi-OS market.

...one may dream.

 

[j763]

Playing chess by the pool?

Eating chinese?

This sounds like something you'd see on CARS...

wtf are these M$macBU ppl on??? "Our commitment is the software we make", these ads and ms moxie.

 

[benixau]

Originally posted by e-coli
Those ads have been out for weeks. The Oct. Macworld has one on the inside cover. It's actually kinda cute.

Thats all fine, but if i am a person deciding on what machine to buy, i am not going to buy a mac mag and a pc mag to see hwich is better. We need new market and TV ads are a good way to do this, mag ads are not, they only appeal to existing customer base.

 

[job]

I think that MS is just scared ****less of the possibilities of OpenOffice superceding MS Office on Macs.

I'm using ThinkFree Office which saves and opens MS Office files and it only cost me 50 dollars, 1/12th of the full MS Office price.

I think MS is worried about losing their foothold on the Mac desktop.

 

[Shrek]

Originally posted by hitman
I think that MS is just scared ****less of the possibilities of OpenOffice superceding MS Office on Macs.

I'm using ThinkFree Office which saves and opens MS Office files and it only cost me 50 dollars, 1/12th of the full MS Office price.

I think MS is worried about losing their foothold on the Mac desktop.

In all actuality, it sounds like the commercials will dispell the myth that Macs and PCs are not compatible with each other.

 

[job]

That would be nice.

It might go along quite nicely with the Switch Ads...

Gotta attract more "Switchers.."

 

[Inhale420]

so many negative people here. leave it to macrumors posters to talk **** about a major price reduction. it almost makes the price of a powermac worth it. at least i know not to take you guys any more seriously than you take me.

 

[shadowfax]

yeah... M$, i think, is waking up to realize that in the truly important places for them, other, free/dirt cheap pieces of software are surpassing them. this is why they are backing off on their antipiracy policies in China. in a place notorious for pirating, they have been getting more inclined to linux and other free operating systems that do things better than windows, albeit with a higher learning curve. M$ is backing down because if they free themselves from windows, M$ will go from profit cuts due to piracy to no profits.

similarly, i predict people will realize in the coming few years that open source organizations based in universities are making software that is absolutely just as good as or better than anything M$ can make.

M$ has a great marketing team, so they will die slowly, but if they don't get their heads out of their arses, they are going to lose their throne by and by.

 

[shadowfax]

btw inhale, i am not criticizing price reduction, i am criticizing a company that is making them. if you eat the bone they throw at you without a grain of salt (the cautious observations about this comapany that we are putting forth), then who is the real fool?

are you familiar, inhale, with appeasement? it's how monopolies stay in power when uncle sam gets on their back.

so yeah, take the deal, i am not opposing that; as i said, it now costs what it should cost. i am just scoffing at the fact that it doesn't normally cost this much.

*cough* monopoly *cough*

 

[ejb190]

Re: Microsoft ads to promote Mac!!!

Originally posted by Shrek
The ads, which play up the ability of Macs and PCs to get along, will begin showing up Saturday in magazines geared at Macintosh, business, techology and design audiences, according to an e-mail from a Microsoft representative.

It is well and good to put these adds in Mac magazines, but this is old news to me (and I assume most of you). I got to thinking here, between looking at the adds and where they are being printed, just who is their target audience here?

The next question is who should that audience be to realistically increase sales?

Eric

 

[zorblaz]

The iMac won the chess match.