Really? Can you point me to someone at Microsoft who used those words in regards to their response to the Apple ads because I can’t find any.

Now I’m all for people upgrading to Windows Vista if their choice is to use a Windows PC. The security is light years ahead of XP and any other version of Windows before it and I’m tired of all the junk mail I’m getting as a result of all those millions of compromised Windows computers but to say that this campaign means that the Mac’s days are numbered ignores the fact that Apple’s Mac sales are 4 times the computer industry average and accelerating.

Microsoft’s problems with Vista are Microsoft’s own fault. You can’t tell me that Apple’s marketing is the sole reason Microsoft has had problems selling Vista. Microsoft’s ‘WOW’ campaign upon Vista’s launch was pathetic but to be truthful, the problems people are having with Vista are not imagined, they are real and they are turning people off. It’s one thing to impress people by showing off features of an operating system in a controlled environment, it’s another when people have to actually use it or worse yet install it or upgrade an existing XP installation. That is where the problems start. Many people have installed and tried to use Vista since it was released but have had so many problems with it that they resort to rolling back their install to Windows XP. No marketing campaign in a controlled environment is going to change that fact.

As good as Apple’s campaign is, it can only get people to try a Mac, it’s the Mac OS that does it’s own sales job. It’s simple elegance and powerful features simply aren’t matched by any Windows operating system. Vista was six years in the making and had many planned features removed to get it out the door but it still does not compare to the polish of Mac OS X, even compared to a Mac OS release from two years ago.