It's Getting Really Old

Yesterday, I watched the new “Get A Mac” ad. And unlike other ads before, no new Mac features were introduced and the joke wasn’t even that funny. There is no doubt about the fact that Mac OS market share is feeding on Windows users, it’s not like new users are growing on trees here. But, there’s no need to be that destructive. The Get A Mac ad campaign started out by making a point which was that Mac is better than PC and Mac OS X is better than any other OS (a.k.a. windows) because it has lots of stuff. And every ad used to tell the story of a certain feature. Like the one that has many Macs that are taking about Time Machine feature, which is if you’re a regular windows user wouldn’t know that windows had something similar since XP which is “Restore Point” but it had never been an easy to use or popular feature that is worth making an ad for.

Then the ads became just funny, like the one with the group therapy where there’s no point other than making fun of Vista and branding Mac as the cool kid in the block more than it already is. But when you start over profiting from anything, it backfires.

Some people are asking “How do they get away with it” as in how can a company say something that mean about another company and not get sued. I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer, but I think that they - Apple - don’t wanna get away with it, they don’t care. Apple always been a fan of making fun of competitors. There was the famous “1984” ad that pictured IBM as the dominate dictator who is brain-washing everyone. And I remember those banners in Mac World conference couple of years ago that said “Redmond, Start your Photocopiers” (as in Microsoft is copying everything Apple is doing). And of course, tons of Steve Jobs’s remarks on competitors in Mac World demos. It’s a natural extension of Apple’s arrogant attitude drawn from their CEO’s ego.

Don’t get me wrong, I admire Steve Jobs, the guy built Apple twice, and if you wanna know the man himself, just watch his Stanford commencement address speech in 2005 (really wise stuff) but there’s no doubt that Steve’s ego is really burning Apple’s bridges with other companies. Once in 1997, Apple needed help from Microsoft for its resurrection. Of course, Microsoft got a fair deal (settlements for for Patent disputes, IE as the default browser on Mac, and revenues from Office for Mac and Apple shares) but if Microsoft knew that Apple would be mocking Vista like they are now, I’m sure Microsoft would have been thinking this through.