"Our friends up north spend over five billion dollars on research and development and all they seem to do is copy Google and Apple."

--Steve Jobs, 2006

The amount of negative publicity generated against Microsoft is exceptionally high at the moment. That sordid advertising campaign takes a great toll with criticism of Apple imitation done poorly... with a Mac.

Microsoft’s 'Phase 2' ad campaign - No mention of Vista anywhere

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Has the “Vista” name become so toxic that Microsoft dare not even mention it in any of the ads? Are these ads designed to help Vista or are they being aired to pave the way for Windows 7?

Roughly Drafted argues that Microsoft is actually promoting Macs more than it promotes Windows, which is unfortunate but very true. It also speaks about GNU/Linux and some recent unethical tricks.

Lately, Microsoft has been forced to advertise defensively. It has worked diligently to attack Linux in an effort to portray free server software as more expensive than its own very expensive server software.

Faced with a failing brand value, Microsoft also attempted to create the impression that bloggers were interested in chatting about Microsoft’s nebulous strategies with the “People Ready” campaign, which really said nothing but handed out bloggers money to repeat the “people ready” catch phrase in an attempt to turn it into a valuable brand slogan. After being exposed, Microsoft slinked away from the “pay to say” People Ready campaign..

We mentioned the demise of the Microsoft brand a couple of days ago. Biz Journal indicates that IBM bumped Microsoft off the the 'consolation prize' position.

IBM has moved past Microsoft to claim the title of second most valuable brand in the world, according to the annual Global Brand List.

Interbrand, a global brand management firm, reported Thursday that IBM’s brand value has increased 3 percent, to $59.03 billion, in 2008. That was enough to push it above Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), which was assigned a brand value of $59 billion and fell to No. 3.

It's important to emphasise again that everything is overrated.

Lastly, a news report from the Philippines tells readers that Microsoft is now investing in training people (for Windows) and dumping software that nobody pays for anyway, casting it as "donations".

Microsoft said it is donating more than $600,000 worth of cash and software to a computer learning program for overseas Filipino workers.

This is part of the program, dubbed Tulay, which is Microsoft' global Unlimited Potential initiative that involves technology-oriented programs aimed at developing countries.

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Microsoft Philippines said they expect to train 25,000 people in the next 3 years.

Tulay has trained more than 14,000 people since 2004.

The Philippines was seen deploying GNU/Linux in schools recently (some more background information here), so these moves Microsoft are not goodwill. They are their defensive necessity for survival. Once again the "Unlimited Potential" brand comes up. It's could equally well be called "anti-Linux budget". We elucidated this very recently. ⬆

"Are Linux users lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of reliable, well-engineered commercial software?"

--Matt Welsh