So Now We Know What the Surface Pro is For
February 11th, 2013 - 12:05 pm
What intrigues me most is the set that looks like MSNBC circa 1998.
What intrigues me most is the set that looks like MSNBC circa 1998.
Gayest. Commercial. Ever.
Ugly fact of the matter is that if it were any good, it would be selling itself. I can’t remember every seeing such dopiness when iPad arrived. Jobs came out, displayed it, said isn’t it cool and everyone oohed and aaahed in agreement and bought one.
This one says to me; “Buy a surface. Be a metrosexual douche”
Aside from some impressive choreography, all the ad told me was that the SurfacePro does have a karaoke app that supports a mic over Bluetooth.
It’s for bad Broadway musicals?
Whatever, man.
The set is from 1998, and the choreography is from 1998 … even the tech is sooooo 1998.
The marketing guys in Cupertino are giggling uncontrollably.
Does anyone else think that one or more of the ad team members has passed by one of the Apple stylized billboard ads (with the person dancing) too many times?
Note to ad team: you don’t actually expect to get useful information from a billboard ad. You DO expect to get useful information from a TV ad for a new product.
Further note to ad team: No one buys a Microsoft product in order to enhance their coolness factor. Your ad does not speak at all to your (potential) customer base.
Note to Microsoft: Please keep on working with this ad team.
(Have I mentioned I hate Microsoft?
)
Nothing is funnier than Microsoft trying to be cool.
‘Microsoft’ and ‘cool’ are not words normally employed in the same sentence. This ad is why.
Kidding aside, I couldn’t help myself – I was at the Microsoft Store on Saturday morning for the launch so I could play with the Surface Pro – but I walked out of the store with the Lenovo Twist.
Why? Because my 55- (soon to be 56-) year-old eyeballs would die a painful death staring at that tiny little screen all day. As an occasional-use machine, okay maybe – but as a daily driver, not so much.
And, IMHO, therein lies the problem for the Surface in particular, and Win8 in general. Tablets in the iPad mold (“keyboard? don’ need no steenking keyboard”) simply don’t exist in the Windows world, by deliberate design; while one can live – sort of – without a keyboard, a pixel-precise pointing device is still required (or at least you’ll be miserable without one). Which leads to the optimal form factor for Windows 8 being a touch-enabled ultrabook.
And there are better touch-enabled ultrabooks than the Surface Pro.