Come on Ubuntu, get a move on here!

Doesn’t anyone at Microsoft realize just how stupid that statement makes them look????

I mean really with no walls why in the name of the unholy would you need any kind of windows??

Microsoft’s hand was more involved in milking the PC revolution than in breeding it. Indeed, it was the cracking of the PC’s BIOS that ushered in the flood of PC-compatible equipment, not Microsoft’s OS, (which was initially written by Tim Patterson at Seattle Computer, not Microsoft).

You said: “How much of a threat is Apple to Microsoft, realistically? I know mac fanboys will bristle at the suggestion, but Apple’s business model doesn’t scale to a level where they could seriously threaten MS’s monopoly.”

Inadvertently, you made an important point, but not the one you think you made –

Apple doesn’t threaten Microsoft’s market share in a significant way, but Apple does threaten Microsoft’s *monopoly*. Linux does too. Microsoft is a company whose business model now depends upon monopoly — they are so addicted to the network effect of monopoly that they are unable to compete fairly. As a result, any significant presence of a competitor is going to harm their market position.

(of course, Ubuntu is an OS, a GNU\Linux distribution, etc.)

Then you really need to watch the ad again. There’s nothing in it that even remotely suggests ”open architectures”.

On the contrary, the Microsoft campaign (unlike the Apple campaign) deliberately equates “a PC” with “a person using Windows”. In this world, PCs running Ubuntu don’t exist at all. That’s a perfectly understandable way for Microsoft’s mass-market advertising to treat Ubuntu at this point: that they’ve “overlooked … the rising popularity of open software like Ubuntu” is entirely intentional.

If Ubuntu had 30% market share, Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” campaign would make no sense (because any “PC” could be running either Windows or Ubuntu). But Apple’s Mac vs. PC campaign would trundle merrily on, with John Hodgman confusedly trying to choose between Vista (“’cause it runs all my apps”) and Ubuntu (”’cause it’s brown, and I like brown”).

PC User sitting in front of a blue screen of death. “Another BSOD, No WALLS????” and user throws Vista package out the window.

Fade into next screen:

User sitting in front of linux desktop… “No walls, no windows, no crashing!”

First of all, I’m a PC and I’ve been stereotyped. You moron!!! Of course you’ve been stereotyped. That’s because you’ve been an unthinking clod for all these years using a crappy software product from a company that doesn’t want you to own your own computer. You are lemmings. Dimwits that continue to step up with your wallets open and, in one of the most naive and unquestioning behaviors imaginable, hand over fist-fulls of money to a convicted monopolist.

“I’m a PC and I fish.” Sorry. I don’t see the connection. Unless of course, it’s Redmond that is doing the fishing and you took the bait.

At least the Mac commercials talk about real issues like viruses and being productive. (Hold the emails, folks, I’m posting this from my Sidux laptop.)

This commercial just makes winDOHs users look pathetic and empty-headed. They can’t even tell us why they chose the garbage in the first place. All they’re saying is “Hey, don’t stereotype me. There are lots of people that use winDOHs.”

So how do stereotypes start in the first place? Hmmmm. First you get a lot of people to do the same thing… something else happens… then profit. Lots and lots of profit.

Why don’t they just come right out and say it. I use winDOHs because I’ve been convinced that everybody else does. How’s that for independent, free-thinking behavior? Right. There’s absolutely no reason why you people should be stereotyped.