Microsoft's “Windows - Live Without Walls” Goes Hunting

Microsoft has entered a new chapter with its “Windows – Life Without Walls” campaign dedicated to reinvigorating the Windows brand, across PCs, mobile devices and the Cloud. With the latest iteration of the marketing push, the Redmond company is attempting to emphasize the price advantages of Windows machines over Apple Mac computers. Laptop Hunters is in fact designed to show how customers on a budget can still afford a Windows PC, in the context in which they would have had to cough up at least double the money in order to buy a Mac with a similar configuration.

In the video embedded at the bottom of this article you will be able to see Lauren visiting the Apple store, and coming out in a hurry. All that Apple had to offer for under $1,000 is a 13-inch machine. The conclusion? “I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person,” Lauren states, managing with just a few words to label Mac users as elitist, and Apple as a company that fails to respond to the needs of consumers everywhere.

The message Microsoft is attempting to transmit is obvious. The Redmond company envisions itself as a traditional caterer to the needs of all consumer segments, whatever they might be. Still, in the end, the ad points out that a Windows laptop is half the price of a Mac, and given the economic downturn, emphasizing affordable technology is an essential strategy in order to stay ahead of the competition.

But the new Laptop Hunters series for “Windows – Life Without Walls” was effectively introduced by Microsoft since 2008, when the software giant started emphasizing heavily that Apple users paid a tax that they should not. Just the past week, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer stated while at a conference in NY that "Apple gained about one point, but now I think the tide has really turned back the other direction. The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment – same piece of hardware – paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be."