Summary: Marketing blunders explored; Microsoft's pressure on businesses to upgrade Windows may actually push them towards Free alternatives

AS we argued the other day, the launch of Vista 7 sort of backfired as there are already some serious technical issues. Upon launch time, few people could focus on anything other than blunders such as this one. Mac Daily News wrote:

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer shills Windows 7 on U.S. national TV in front of Apple Mac (with video)

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MacDailyNews Take: It must suck to work for Microsoft where important details routinely go left unchecked and, no matter where in the world you go, you're constantly surround by professionals who all use Apple Macs. Plus, every time you try to promote your inferior products, Apple's keep showing up in your TV appearances and even in your sloppy company's own ads that are, of course, also creating on Macs.

If that's not bad enough, Microsoft went further to justify the "bloated" reputation using very tactless advertising with Burger King. Watch the photos. It is almost as gross as this epic meal. "Superflab, superbloat, Unhappy Meal," calls it one of our readers, who adds: "Can Microsoft make a joke of itself any faster than this?"

Going back to Apple, watch how Microsoft imitates Apple's profitable business model, which leads John Dvorak to ridiculing them. Mac Daily News quotes:

Dvorak: Microsoft needs Microsoft-branded PCs for their retail stores

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"Microsoft does not need to be servicing a Dell laptop retuned by a customer now blaming Microsoft for its failure," Dvorak writes. "A failure in this [retail store] venue could be catastrophic for Microsoft. It needs branded hardware to be a success. It's that simple."

In relation to the above, Pamela Jones at Groklaw writes: "File this under Irony. That's why Apple likes to have its own branded hardware too, methinks, eh Psystar? It works better that way."

Microsoft is also setting up that Windows Cafe in Paris, as planned a while back. It's a gimmick and it is funny because France is said to be the most Free software-leaning country in Europe. USA Today has this new post about how GNU/Linux capitalises on Microsoft's pressure on businesses to move to Vista 7. Notice the story about Ballmer and Germany -- another country which is rapidly moving towards Free software, especially at the administration level.

On the eve of Microsoft's launch of Windows 7, the gloves are off in the fight for business customers. IBM today unveiled an all-out campaign to persuade U.S. companies, governments and organizations to finally break their Windows habit and make the switch to Linux.

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IBM has been making this argument for years. In the spring of 2003, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer cut short a skiing trip to race to Germany to try prevent the city of Munich from excising Windows and Office from 14,000 desktop PCs. Ballmer failed. IBM and German Linux distributor SuSE worked furiously behind the scenes to persuade Munich to make the switch to a Linux system.

One blogger puts Vista 7 into perspective as follows:

After getting millions of people all over the world to shell out money for the sugar-frosted turd that was Windows Vista, here we are three years later at the Windows 7 launch, and Microsoft has people practically falling over themselves to pay more money so they don’t have to use Vista any more. And people are treating Microsoft like some sort of returning hero for this. How in the world are they getting away with it? “We charged you a lot of money for a broken piece of crap, and you’ve been suffering with it for three years, and now here’s a somewhat fixed version that isn’t quite so much a piece of crap, and you’ll pay us more money for it!” “Wow! Gee, thanks, Microsoft! You’re the greatest! We love you!” What the hell is going on here?

What's "going on here" is AstroTurfing, at least in part. ⬆