

I liked Microsoft better when they were assholes - johns
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1251-i-liked-microsoft-better-when-they-were-assholes

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mattmaroon
I still don't understand how anyone can believe that Seinfeld only being in
the first 2 was not their plan all along. It's not as if MS makes decisions
one day, and then the ads are on TV the next.

They plan the ads, shoot them, and buy the slots months in advance. They're
not pulling them like recalled toys from Wal-Mart shelves. If they had wanted
more of them, they would have filmed them and purchased the ad slots months
ago, and we'd be watching them next week no matter what the critical reaction
to the first two.

TV studios don't just say "sure we'll refund your commercial payments because
people didn't like your previous ads."

~~~
raganwald
> They plan the ads, shoot them, and buy the slots months in advance. They're
> not pulling them like recalled toys from Wal-Mart shelves. If they had
> wanted more of them, they would have filmed them and purchased the ad slots
> months ago, and we'd be watching them next week no matter what the critical
> reaction to the first two.

In my previous life as a marketing manager I have seen ad campaigns get
pulled. They could have shot different ads as a plan B. The ads we are seeing
now might have been intended to follow a longer series of Seinfeld ads but got
moved up. Or they might have been intended for smaller markets and were
promoted.

It may be the case that Microsoft planned doing just two ads with Jerry all
along, but I wouldn't say that not running a third Seinfeld ad is proof of
this.

~~~
raganwald
[http://valleywag.com/5051860/microsoft-ad-agency-confirms-
ne...](http://valleywag.com/5051860/microsoft-ad-agency-confirms-new-seinfeld-
ad-produced-yet-not-running)

I tried submitting this, but it was marked "Dead" immediately. Nice, it looks
like HN knows when enough is enough!

~~~
menloparkbum
valleywag links are automatically killed.

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river_styx
Okay, this article has basically no content whatsoever. It's 37signals, yeah.
It's DHH, yeah. But should that really be enough to get any post to the HN
frontpage?

~~~
hhm
However, I think the basic article premise (stated in the title), is something
interesting and that nobody is saying. MS was cooler, even when it was cruel
and dark. Now it's not even the dark lord, it's like a new IBM, and that's not
going to attract a lot of attention.

~~~
mattmaroon
Seems more the opposite to me. IBM doesn't do anything different than anyone
else in their advertising. They just come out and say "IBM products are good."
Also, IBM doesn't sell much to consumers, so they don't need or want to sound
cool.

Microsoft is doing something different. And while all different is not cool,
all cool is different. It's at least half way there.

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maxklein
And who is David to say this? MS is one of the biggest companies in the world,
makes billions in revenue, used by all major coorporations, and 37signals are
just some tiny tiny fraction of that, and stopped innovating years ago and
just live off marketing and PR.

So why should I pay attention to this tiny tiny company instead of the big
successful one?

~~~
monkeyx
I bet you said that when Microsoft came along and took on IBM.

~~~
maxklein
37signals is really not an innovative company. They are a marketing company.
They have one product that is not particular ground breaking, and they have
several derivatives of that product. They have not invested their income in
expanding or in any way becoming more significant than their blog.

Look at google. They started roughly like 37signals (well, not as much self-
horn-tooting), but they kept expanding and innovating, and now they are huge.
37signals? They are about the same as when they started!

If they would spend less time talking and more time coming up with new
innovative products, then I would start paying attention to them.

It feels to me almost as if it took them 3-4 months to add comments to their
todo lists.

Microsoft was fast, agile and they innovated their way to the top. They came
up with new products, they copied people and made things better, they released
APIs, the offered SDKs. 37signals just writes on their blog.

If the loopt people told me stuff, I'd much rather listen to them than
37signals. 37signals is a slow slow company, they are not a product company,
they are all about conferences, talks, books and blogging right now. And as an
engineer, I'm sorry, but I don't respect such people, no matter how much money
they make.

I want to see products. I want them to hit me with something that makes me say
'wow'. But what do they bring out? Campfire? What the hell is that? It's
already there in outlook. There is nothing innovative about painting outlook
pretty.

Even twitter is way more innovative than anything 37signals has ever put out.

------
gscott
I believe Microsoft has the personality of Gates and when Gates just simply
found out in life he didn't want to be an asshole anymore this caused
Microsoft to lose direction.

The same thing happened to John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. One day he
just decided he was tired of being the asshole and said "spend it". He created
a foundation to spend his money, there is a funny part in his biography where
he was making money so fast his foundation could keep up spending it, causing
Rockefeller consternation.

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iigs
_I pity the marketers working the Microsoft account. There’s no way to win. If
they go vague, they get people_ready. If they go edgy, they get panic and push
back. Talk about a set of golden handcuffs._

Pity indeed. They're in a tough spot because MS has too many irons in their
brand fire. The same company that sells Halo and Zunes sells BizTalk server.

They could probably fix this by breaking the corporate branding into several
virtual companies; they could be sliced over 9000 different ways but at least
getting the consumer entertainment and devices out into an "edgy" brand would
alleviate the pain substantially.

I suspect that this is kind of what they're trying to do with the prefix
naming they've done so much of over the last 3-5 years. I think "Microsoft
Windows Live Hotmail" is an attempt to put a marque around them without making
them look like they are separate companies for antitrust purposes.

~~~
mattmaroon
I don't pity anyone making that money. Also, it's great publicity for them. If
it works, they're on the gravy train for decades (though CP+B was already
doing just fine).

~~~
ssharp
Yeah, I'm sure CP+B is real upset with their 300MM account.

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iamdave
Pot meet kettle. (sorry to any 37s fans)

------
greyman
Hubris, hubris...

