14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft's “Windows - Live Without Walls” went laptop hunting at the end of March 2009, slapping Apple over the price of Mac computers. The latest installment of the Windows “Laptop Hunters” video advertisement manages to easily add insult to injury by labeling Macs as insufficiently powerful to compare with Windows machines. However, despite increasing the budget of the latest Windows laptop hunter, namely Giampaolo, Microsoft's point is the same as in the Lauren ad, aired at the end of the past month: Windows machines offer more value at a cheaper price compared to Apple. The conclusion? Apple users pay more because of the logo and the brand.
Giampaolo agrees, perhaps a tad too enthusiastically, that Macs are at least aesthetically correct, but then criticizes the products for lacking in computing power. “I don't want to pay for the brand; I want to pay for the computer," the Windows laptop hunter says in the ad, embedded at the bottom of this article. Giampaolo ends up buying an HP HDX 16 with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD for $1,099, indeed cheaper compared to a Mac with a similar hardware configuration, which would run a customer up approximately $1,500.
But while the price comparison is indisputably unfavorable to Apple, not even Microsoft's own employees agree with the criticism over Macs' power. One example is technical evangelist, and self-declared Mac user, Keith Combs (UPDATE: Post has been removed by author). “What is it about the MacBook listed here that doesn’t meet your needs? Looks like it has power enough to run all the mainstream apps I can think of. It’s certainly portable. I have no idea what the realistic battery life is for the new 13” MacBook. The specs say 5 hours of wireless productivity. That’s pretty good. I have a last generation MacBook Pro. I purchased it new in November of 2007. It isn’t the current generation but it’s plenty powerful,” he stated.
Combs offered a MacBook as an example of his argument. The machine featured a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of DDR3, 160 SATA HDD. “I’m supportive of our ads. I think they are provocative. They are generating interest. That’s a good thing. But I also want the ads to have more integrity than what I saw Apple broadcast. Lauren’s ad was sassy and her zinger about not being kewl enough to be a Mac person was classic. But her requirements were more straightforward for the purchase,” Combs explained.
Power aside, Microsoft's ads successfully place Windows machines in the spotlight and not the Windows operating system. Buyers look to the hardware configuration first, and to the operating system second. Windows XP continued domination over the OS market is a clear illustration of the fact that if the software just works, users don't really feel the need to embrace a newer platform. But price, configuration, power, and value vs. expense are indeed the first things on the mind of consumers when they shop for a machine.