Rat spies hidden truths in Microsoft's send-up of Volkswagen TV ad
Packet Rat R. Fink While fellow attendees fought altitude sickness in Denver at Microsoft Corp.'s professional developer conference, the cyberrodent collected tchotchkes to line the walls of the burrow against the coming cold weather. He sipped bottled water bearing the Windows logo and pondered the eternal question: Just what is Microsoft's enterprise strategy?
Packet Rat While fellow attendees fought altitude sickness in Denver at Microsoft Corp.s He sipped bottled water bearing the Windows logo and pondered the eternal question: Bill Gates was on hand to deliver the keynote address, which included a Microsoft video The one that stuck in the Rats tiny, attention-deficit-disorder-plagued brain was The gag commercial puts Microsoft veep Steve Ballmer at the wheel and a fidgety Gates The pair cruise aimlessly through a Silicon Valley residential neighborhood until they Bill and Steve drive off with their plunder, just as in the original ad. But in the As they dump the Sun and zoom away, the Microsoft Internet Explorer logo and To the Rats mind, the spoof works in many ways. For one thing, Gates and Ballmer But the video delivers a perhaps unintended message. Has Microsoft formed its The wired ones mental wheels spun: The commercial, made just before the Justice Department opened its antitrust trial But the furry one doubts that Bill has his eye on Volkswagen. Volkswagens look too much The Packet Rat once managed networks but now spends his time ferreting out bad
R. Fink
professional developer conference, the cyberrodent collected tchotchkes to line the walls
of the burrow against the coming cold weather.
Just what is Microsofts enterprise strategy?
spoofing television shows, commercials and advertisements.
a clever takeoff on the Volkswagen Da da da commercial. You know, the one
where two guys in a VW do some spontaneous furniture acquisition, then dump their armchair
prize because of its odor.
in the passenger seat.
spy loot at the curb: a chair with a Sun Microsystems UltraSparc workstation piled on it.
Microsoft universe, it isnt the chair that stinks. Its the Sun workstation.
Volkswagens Drivers wanted slogan flash up on the screen.
could be perfect stand-ins for the bland pair of geeks in the original commercial.
enterprise strategy by wandering aimlessly until it finds some technology to steal, then
dumping it when it proves unattractive?
against Microsoft, could have been more than a flight of fancy. Maybe Bill dreams of
taking his money and the PC model and shifting over into the auto business, where
megacompanies are the norm.
like Apple iMacs.
packets in cyberspace. E-mail him at rat@gcn.com.
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