Microsoft once again uses Siri to hawk Windows 8 tablets
In yet another ad meant to sway new tablet buyers away from Apple, and toward the brave new world of Windows 8, Microsoft has once again enlisted Siri to pitch their product, this time for Dell's XPS 10 tablet.
In 30 seconds, Microsoft's ad pitches some of the benefits of owning a Windows 8 tablet over an iPad running iOS, such as the ability to pinch to zoom to see more apps on the home screen, built-in SD card compatibility, running two apps on the same display, and a lower price. Redmond not only enlists Apple?s intelligent virtual assistant to push their own product in this ribbing ad, it also mimics Apple?s own advertising style, showing two tablets side by side against a backdrop of white.
The commercial begins with Microsoft pointing out that users can?t pinch on the home screen to see multiple pages of apps.
?I?m sorry, I can?t zoom like that,? says the soon-to-be updated Siri, in a robotic monotone.
The Dell tablet user then slides in an SD card from their camera, while the same action on the iPad prompts Siri to protest, ?You can?t put an SD card there, or there, or there.?
She then compliments Windows 8?s ability to run two apps on the same screen before lamenting about the iPad's $599 price tag, which is $200 more than the Dell XPS 10?s current special offer price of $399. What the ad doesn?t mention is that the XPS 10 normally starts at $449 when it?s not on sale.
These parody ads are becoming common for the Microsoft, which has not only mocked Apple and Siri, but also Android and Samsung in its take on the smartphone war, a fight in which Windows Phone is all but absent.
The timing of the most recent commercial is particularly interesting.
Microsoft released Office 365 Mobile for iPhone earlier today, but left both the iPad and Android devices in the cold. This can be been seen as an attempt to drive more Windows 8 tablets sales which, as seen in a previous and similar ad, is capable of running PowerPoint.
There?s also the old argument that Windows 8 only boasts a library of 65,000 apps or so, while iOS carried more than 250,000 as of July 2012. What Microsoft wants customers to remember, of course, is that Office can?t be found in Apple?s expansive collection.
In 30 seconds, Microsoft's ad pitches some of the benefits of owning a Windows 8 tablet over an iPad running iOS, such as the ability to pinch to zoom to see more apps on the home screen, built-in SD card compatibility, running two apps on the same display, and a lower price. Redmond not only enlists Apple?s intelligent virtual assistant to push their own product in this ribbing ad, it also mimics Apple?s own advertising style, showing two tablets side by side against a backdrop of white.
The commercial begins with Microsoft pointing out that users can?t pinch on the home screen to see multiple pages of apps.
?I?m sorry, I can?t zoom like that,? says the soon-to-be updated Siri, in a robotic monotone.
The Dell tablet user then slides in an SD card from their camera, while the same action on the iPad prompts Siri to protest, ?You can?t put an SD card there, or there, or there.?
She then compliments Windows 8?s ability to run two apps on the same screen before lamenting about the iPad's $599 price tag, which is $200 more than the Dell XPS 10?s current special offer price of $399. What the ad doesn?t mention is that the XPS 10 normally starts at $449 when it?s not on sale.
These parody ads are becoming common for the Microsoft, which has not only mocked Apple and Siri, but also Android and Samsung in its take on the smartphone war, a fight in which Windows Phone is all but absent.
The timing of the most recent commercial is particularly interesting.
Microsoft released Office 365 Mobile for iPhone earlier today, but left both the iPad and Android devices in the cold. This can be been seen as an attempt to drive more Windows 8 tablets sales which, as seen in a previous and similar ad, is capable of running PowerPoint.
There?s also the old argument that Windows 8 only boasts a library of 65,000 apps or so, while iOS carried more than 250,000 as of July 2012. What Microsoft wants customers to remember, of course, is that Office can?t be found in Apple?s expansive collection.
Comments
They really should have gone back to the "pitting Apple against Samsung" vibe. Maybe it cost too much to get the royalties to say the competing products' names.
I wonder if you can copyright a synthesized voice and if so why didn't Apple do it?
Gatwick airport in London has this giant Lenovo advert atm, some sort of convertible windows tablet. Not only does it have a laptop mode and a tablet mode... but a "stand" mode (keyboard facing down, ytf!?!) and... Wait for it... "TENT MODE" where it is stood in an A-frame. Hilarious. How in any way those latter two help, I'll never know. Ms and partners are very much doing the same old tablet thing from 10years ago. How do they not catch on. Baffling.
How else are they going to get to "the charm"?
Winning!!!!!!
Hmm, which one to go for? The windows one has a slightly bigger screen. Oh wait, Apple's one can speak? I'll go for that one.
All they really got is that it's ... "cheaper!"
Sad.
2)Wait till IOS 7 for that multitasking experience
3)Dual apps is not that much needed
/s
It was funny the first time but now it is just dumb. If you like the metro interface then that would be something but not everyone does. Microsoft lowering their prices for a limited time seems desperate. They already did the "Two apps at once bit." so I guess that pony has no more tricks.
And when you show it on the screen, even for a second, people will instantly say "iPad" in their heads.
No matter what the voiceover says... people think "iPad and some other unknown device"
Just like your last Windows Phone commercial... the only thing people remember is this guy:
[IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/26835/width/350/height/700[/IMG]
Dear Microsoft... thanks for promoting Apple!
Wow that is a bad ad...
Aside from trying to denigrate the competition and kind of failing (Why not just script it this way: "The iPad can talk!? That's cool…!"), if all they've got is "pinch to see app icon tray", a micro-SD slot, a "two apps at once" sidebar (can someone give me a good, FUNCTIONAL example of how this would be really useful? JUST one??), and a "cheaper price" (most people DO understand that you get what you pay for), then they haven't got much.
Which pretty much explains why this ad is so bad and misdirected. Pretty sad, really.
Most interesting to me is, it's at a time when a) Apple has just announced some major improvements and changes to iOS (that work better than anything produced by MS in years), and b) at a time when the brand aesthetic of Apple is reaching into user "hearts and lives", MS degrades the message into a trite, snarky conversation about a few "missing features".
If I were heading MS, I'd fire Ballmer and the ad agency doing their marketing, and reboot. They pretty desperately need it.
Apple should air a few commercial of Balmer jumping around the stage screaming and wheezing "Developers, developers, developers..." and a montage of all his other ape-like antics. At the very end, Siri says "Yeah.....we can't do that either"
You want to know what else is not cool:
Surface RT
The 32 GB Surface RT has approximately 15 GB storage available for user content
The 64 GB Surface RT has approximately 45 GB storage available for user content
Surface Pro
The 64 GB Surface Pro has approximately 28 GB storage available for user content
The 128 GB Surface Pro has approximately 85 GB storage available for user content
(source: Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/storage)
What the F is that a commercial for? Windows Tablet? a Dell XP... something? Dell.com? Microsoft? The iPad?
siri does know to take their advert with a grain of salt ...
(yes, i edited my name from the screenshot)