Zen

So this morning while I was flipping thought my 100 plus cable channels trying to find something remotely non “presidential election” related and I stumbled upon a story on Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton. The clip was talking about how she had hit a top fund raising mark, making more the 26 million bucks in a quarter.. WOW. They then went to say how Senator Clinton was a huge hit in Hollywood with loads of top celebrity donations. Senator Clinton even has her husband former President Bill Clinton campaigning for her….thats like twice as much coverage as the next candidate both with the people and in the press.

Our good pal Hillary sure seems like she has lots of rich friends and a good deal of campaigning horsepower. But yet in the Iowa Caucus, she came in 3rd and in overall delegate totals she is behind Senator Obama. So sure she has won a few in New Hampshire and Nevada, but where the rubber hits the road, with her husbands continued popularity and all that star power behind her, she is still coming up second best.

This got me to thinking, being a techie and all…whats happening in the tech world where the hype is greatly outweighed by the actual users and results. Welcome Microsoft Vista. Microsoft would lead you to believe that 88 million copies of Vista have been sold to rave reviews like the ones here, here and of course here.

Microsoft’s marketing machine has to be one of the largest in the world, pour 500+ million dollars into the marketing of Windows Vista. How many of these copies of Vista are actually users who WANT it or are forced to settle with it when they purchase a new PC. Kinda like buying a car you are stuck with the ugley steering wheel, like it or not.

MS wants you to believe Vista is the greatest thing since Windows 95, but don’t trust them. What do the users have to say on the matter. Oh the fun doesn’t end there. People are now so upset at Windows Vista, there are guides on how to downgrade to XP and even better Dell selling new PC’s with XP again. Hmm something isn’t right.

This article isn’t bash piece of Senator Clinton or MS Vista, as I applaud the Senetor in the work she is doing and the movement she has started –but a look at the actual product. No matter how much marketing money you spend, if the product isn’t a good one—or if the benefits aren’t any better then what you already have, no one will vote for or purchase your product. Having money and doing great marketing your product, is great, but if the product is faulty, its money not well spent.

Author: Thomas Clifford

Tom Clifford is a printing guy working in prepress and lives in Wisconsin with his wife and 4 kids. He enjoys counting the shags in his carpets, parallelograms and playing with his 8 month old Emma.

It is indeed due to marketing that london flights stand far ahead than las vegas flights or even new york flights. Even if people are looking for flights to orlando, they check out other flights anyways.

Comments »

jerry:

Tom,
Enjoyed your post—but come on– what is a pre-press guy fiddling Vista the lame cousin of the Mac OS.
You do use a Mac for your important work ..right?

January 29th, 2008 | 11:04 am

Joe:

Loved the analogy.

January 29th, 2008 | 1:12 pm

vitaly:

Windows Vista not so good, like XP. Vista has many bugs 

May 16th, 2008 | 2:49 am