Brian Grey Blog

It’s a small blurb for sure, but today’s Wall Street Journal highlights an interesting spat between old friends Microsoft and Apple.

The rift centers around Microsoft’s recent ad campaign that features everyday consumers walking around a Best Buy (or some similar big box consumer electronics retailer) in search of a PC for a really low price. Apparently, Apple takes exception at the characterization in the ads that the everyday consumers in the spots discount buying a Mac because they’re too expensive.

Well, I have to say I am surprised to see Apple responding to a competitor’s ad campaign — and a Microsoft campaign no less.

Hey, it’s not like those Mac vs. PC ads in which the PC is portrayed by the dorky nerd (is that redundant?) and the Mac is played by Mr. Urban Hipster Guy (who probably doesn’t have a job in real life) aren’t a bit unflattering to Microsoft. But I don’t recall hearing that attorneys from Redmond were calling Cupertino to complain about that characterization.

Now the WSJ blurb is not super descriptive as to Apple’s beef with Microsoft, but it appears to be along the lines of Apple taking exception to the claim that Apple laptops cost way more than a PC loaded with Microsoft’s award winning operating system.

Maybe in a recession there’s Marketing Law exception and competing on price is the way to go, but why would Apple even go there? How about the old adage “you get what you pay for”? My 3-year old Macbook pro still hums along like the day I bought it while my Dell laptop with XP gags and coughs its way with every reboot (thank goodness I have avoided Vista).

If Apple was being Apple they’d not waste time having their lawyers ask Microsoft to stop an ad campaign (particularly given how successful those requests usually are) and they’d apply their creative genius at parodying the spots somehow in ther Nerd vs. Cool Guy ads.

You know, something along the lines of showing the happy family trying to boot up their new PC laptop with their baby on their lap and then showing the kid heading out the door for college just as the desktop is fully loaded.

Remember, always compete on quality and performance, not on price.

Finally got around to the upgrade last night (ok, early this morning). The install went pretty smoothly (at least so far). I had hoped to use the WP auto upgrade plugin or the one-click scripts upgrade tool that my web host offers, but realized both of those options would be sub optimal to doing a manual upgrade.

Nice thing now is that future installs come with one-click upgrade built in to 2.7.

I am just getting going on the new UI, but I like it already! The QuickPress module is pretty handy. I am sure the more I bang around on the dashboard I’ll come up with some feedback for the WP crew.

One of the plugins I do want to play around with is Buddy Press that just came out with the 2.7 release. As WP expands beyond a blog publishing platform, I can really see them evolving to become the “dashboard” that I have been looking for to corral all of my personal communications and publishing activities — across my social graph.

The other feature I will be looking for is a way to auto publish a status update with a Tiny URL of each of my latest blog posts through my Twitter account so those that follow me on Twitter can be prompted when I have an updated post.

Speaking of cool features, how great would it be to have a single place where I can drive all of this versus having to bounce across 10 browser tabs in FireFox?

I’m not convinced closed end solutions being offered up by Microsoft Windows Live at home.live.com or AOL via Bebo will be complete enough to make it worth my time because they will always feel limited in terms of the services that I can plug in?

Few notes of interest from what I was able to scan heading in to the Thanksgiving holiday extended weekend:

AlleyInsider kicks around the idea of Microsoft following Apple and Google’s lead by getting in to the mobile phone business. Doesn’t sound that far fetched when you see how little they stand to make licensing Windows for the mobile world, particularly if people continue buying non-Windows devices like the iPhone in droves. Plus, if you have the size and cash that MSFT has, why would you let pesky OEMs stand between you and the end user. What’s next, buying some spectrum and steamrolling the Carriers?

Speaking of MSFT (ok MSN), good to see my ‘ol pal Rob Bennett getting a bump up in the MSN world. Rob’s taking on role of Network-wide programming czar for MSN. Sounds like a good gig for Rob and will let him do what he’s been doing in an Entertainment context and apply it to all MSN channels.

I am curious to check out Zemanta in more detail. At first glance looks like a cool tool for adding features and engagement for bloggers. Will see if I can pull off the plug-in integration within WP?

What are other guys talking about? Fred Wilson highlights StockTwits, a “bloomberg for the little guy” as they call themselves. Basically culls all tweets (or twits…what’s the difference again?) that reference a specific stock ticker with $ in front (e.g. $YHOO picks up thread about Yahoo investor commentary).

By far, my favorite commentary I accessed after installing the FireFox extension was the following:

No, I’m not pissed at Apple because their stock chart over the last 30 days looks like a Swiss Alps ski slope. I pissed because my holy grail of being able to finally make the full switchover from PC to Mac has been blocked.

You see, I spent the better part of this evening trying to get the synchronization going between iCal, Entourage and my iPhone for my contacts and calendar. Oh, it was going to be glorious. A single laptop, a single mobile device, all tied together seamlessly by the eloquence of Steve’s hardware and software wonders.

But no. Much to my chagrin, iCal and Entourage don’t talk to each other. And not just in my OS X 10.4.11 version. This seems to be a problem that a lot of people are encountering. I guess you could blame some of it on Microsoft. It is afterall their Entourage software that is in the chain here.

No dice. I expect more from Apple. I expect perfection — a perfection that would enable them to work around whatever Entourage “issues” might be at play here. So now what do I do? I guess I have to dial back my aspirations for a single, super PIM (e.g. Entourage) and live on my laptop witch the more basic Mac address book and iCal?

Wait until I get up the nerve to try Mobile Me!