Disaster Tourism

I have to admit some bias here before I begin: I am not a big fan of Microsoft.  I hate their bloated, buggy, hacked together software so much, it drove me to Linux at the beginning of this decade.  This is pre-Ubuntu, and before Linux distributions used “ports” style software distribution like APT or YUM.  It was difficult to use and I couldn’t listen to mp3s or watch DVDs, but dang it I had to get away from Windows.  After Apple switched to using Intel processors, I got a Mac and have been virtually Windows-free ever since.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, I have to admit that I have tried Windows 7 Release Candidate, and it is easily the best piece of software that Microsoft has produced to date, with the possible exception of the X-Box 360 firmware.  Granted, the user interface may have borrowed a few things from Mac OS X and Ubuntu, namely the new dock (Mac) and file system (Mac, Ubuntu, and any other Unix), but all in all it is very useable and much more secure.  Couple this with the recent charity of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and you might think this is a brand new Microsoft.  They learned their lessons from the Vista debacle and their questionable morals of the past and now they are ready to turn over a new leaf.

Then this abomination appeared on my screen.  Seriously Microsoft?  I’m supposed to invite all my friends over so they can look at my computer running Windows 7?  You want me to invite people I have to see every day into my house and try to sell them YOUR damn product? Oh, but it’s okay, cause you provided activities.  We can all have fun sending emails and looking at internets (which raises the question, “How many internets are there?”).

Something that Microsoft needs to learn (and perhaps also the United Methodist Church, but that’s a blog post for another day) is that they AREN’T COOL.  You hear me?  Not cool.  I know that Apple is cool, and you are getting some kernel envy over there in Redmond, but you don’t need to be Apple!  You know what the best marketing campaign you could ever have would look like?  It would look like this:

Hey.  Our Operating System isn’t a piece of crap anymore.  In fact, it’s really good.

Then you could have individual commercials detailing how good your product is.  When you try to look cool, you just end up looking idiotic: because you aren’t cool.  And that’s okay!  I’m not cool, but I somehow manage to get by.  Ben Folds isn’t cool either. It’s alright not to be cool.  Maybe you should stop trying so hard to be cool and just focus and doing something right.  For once.