If this were a FARK entry, I would be breaking out the “Unlikely” tag.
Bill Veghte, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Windows Business, told the Credit Suisse Annual Technology Conference that perceptions of the Windows brand had improved because of the company’s $300 million ad campaign, which was based around the laughable “Project Mojave” campaign.
“In a statistically significant fashion, we moved the perception of Windows positively in September and we moved it again in October,” he said, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “We have not done that outside a product release since we started the perception studies on Windows in the late 90s.”
The Mojave commercials really are the wrong way to do it because they are a tacit admission that the perception of Vista is bad. Yes, we know the perception is bad, but Microsoft shouldn’t be the one admitting it. When you think about it, is that really the message you want to send? Mind you, I do think Vista has gotten a bum rap, especially given that it was nVidia’s poor drivers that caused many problems in the early days of its release. But that was in the winter of 2007. It is now almost two years later and both Vista and nVidia’s drivers are running much better.
Then again, we heard a similar knock on the Apple ads. While effective, the ads also had the perception of making the Mac look worse, because “PC” seemed like a decent, earnest guy trying to get his job done and “Mac” was an obnoxious jerk.
Veghte didn’t say much about Windows 7, just that it was “a minor release when it comes to incompatibility.” And he stuck to the old January 2010 release schedule Microsoft has been stating dutifully.
