The salesman ad was shameful but Mac vs. PC was fair game. Why? Just because of your technical convictions?

... I don't recall ever saying that Mac vs. PC was fair game. Please don't project onto me.

I thought they were in poor taste - as it tends to be when a company spends more time trashing a competitor than touting its own products. I for one am happy that Apple has moved past that marketing tactic.

That said, even Mac vs. PC was better done than the salesman ad - PC was always the well-meaning, wholesome, but hopelessly out of date buffoon... whereas Google here is being portrayed as slimy, dishonest, and malicious. There's a difference - in my eyes this is incredibly poor form on MS's part.

well-meaning, wholesome, but hopelessly out of date buffoon? More like:

"Two men stand side by side in front of a featureless, white background. "Hello, I'm a Mac," says the guy on the right (who is much younger and dressed in jeans). "And I'm a PC," says the guy on the left (who wears dorky glasses, ill-fitting khakis, and a jacket and tie). The two men discuss the many advantages of using a Mac and seem to agree that Macs are "better" than PCs"

>Google here is being portrayed as slimy, dishonest, and malicious.

The salesman is being projected that way, and I hope you know how IT salesmen work, they're just maybe one notch above used car salesmen, You can take it as a parody if you will. And it wasn't plastered all over prime TV like the Apple ads were, it was just a video uploaded to YouTube(atleast for now).

If you have any beef with misleading or wrong content in the ad(like there was in some Apple ads) I am willing to take a look at your argument.

I think we need to declare some things here: looking at your comments throughout this thread I'm going to ask you straight up: are you employed by, or affiliated with Microsoft?

It seems like you're the only here leaping to MS's defense at every turn. I'm willing to accept that's simply your stance, but we should put this to rest.

I'll go first: I am not employed by Google, nor have ever been employed by Google, nor by any subsidiary, nor have I ever worked for a Google affiliate (marketing firm, contract firm, etc).

> "who wears dorky glasses, ill-fitting khakis, and a jacket and tie"

That's the point. PC was always the "nice guy" - PC was never portrayed as slimy, perverted, belligerent, or even stupid. He's the hopelessly out-of-date nerd, which in itself is not a fair characterization of Windows/PC users, but at least doesn't have the malicious implications that you get with a very obvious "used car salesman" character.

> "The salesman is being projected that way, and I hope you know how IT salesmen work"

You're applying this standard to Google, but not in reverse to MS. The whole ad in summary was "Google is slimy. Their products suck, and they are willing to lie and swindle you to get you to sign on the dotted line". You're saying that all IT sales is like that - yet the clear implication in the ad was that Microsoft is not like this.

So if we're taking you at your word that all IT sales works in slimy ways and that this is true across the board, then Microsoft lied by implying that their own sales guys aren't.

> "If you have any beef with misleading or wrong content in the ad"

Oh here we go. This is the same lame defense political attack ads use: "there's nothing factually inaccurate in this ad! What're you complaining about?! We didn't say that our opponent goes easy on rapists, who cares about tone, connotation, and implication?"

As always, attack ads (whether political or commercial) are in general in poor form, but MS has really crossed a whole other threshold with this one. FWIW, it really takes away from their products and good work that is being done at MS. The more MS attacks its competitors directly in its marketing message, the less consumers will perceive MS products as good in their own right.

The Google Salesman ad was done in incredibly poor taste, shows very poor judgment on the part of MS marketing, and is not only unfair to Google, but more important is unfair to Microsoft, who is working on some genuinely kickass products. They blew an opportunity to brag about the superior features of Office and instead spent it slandering a competitor in the most hamfisted manner imaginable. The Office team at MS is probably the most innovative team in the realm of their core products. They're the ones who voluntarily threw out years of UI and went back to the drawing board for the ribbon (which despite the mocking of its competitors, *works really well). They have shown a tenacity for constant product improvement that deserves to be recognized, and instead MS is spending its time doing "hurr Google evil, incompetent, and would probably steal your stapler if he could".

The fact that you have to question the integrity of someone who says something positive about Microsoft in an anti-Microsoft post, while people defending Apple and Google and piling on MS in every other story get a free pass, is very telling about the nature of the community and it's biases. (As if it wasn't evident already in the story selection and comment moderation).

Lets hunt down this person who doesn't seem to fit in our community! Okay I am kidding about that, but yeah, the closest I ever was to Microsoft was when I interviewed for Amazon at Seattle. I've never directly or indirectly received a penny from them and I don't own any stock either(and never did).

First of all, the ad doesn't really qualify as an ad, right now it's just a video uploaded to YouTube and thus gets minimal exposure. Microsoft is known to make weird and funny videos for no purpose really(it is part of their company culture), and I found the videos mildly amusing, especially the Gmail man one. None of them are particularly well-made, or are likely to swing people.

People who make purchasing decision are knowledgeable enough about slimy MS salesmen to fall for any of this. I don't know if MS got sore after losing some big contracts and felt that the customers were misled into choosing Google apps inspite of some disadvantages and made this video, but I sure don't find them reprehensible enough to lose sleep over about which multi billion corporation is more right. I just don't see why everyone gets into a hissy fit and seem to lose all sense of proportion when it gets to MS, but other companies get a free pass for similar tactics.This is the reason I make the comments I do. We need Bing if only to keep Google honest and innovative (atleast till DDG or the next thing picks up).

Did you know Winsupersite.com is shadowbanned on HN? I wonder what crime it committed in the eyes of HN'ers, go visit the site and tell me if you can discern why it can be possibly be completely banned from ever showing up on HN. It's one of the only Windows enthusiast sites on the Internet which comes out with breaking Microsoft news and leaks. Maybe that's reason enough for people here to banish it from visitors seeing it :) Paul Thurott is a respected author, blogger and Windows enthusiast and even has a weekly podcast on TWiT with The community seems to be more spiteful towards anything MS than MS towards Google!!! :)

I would love to be a fly on the wall when Google salesmen push their products, do you think they would be completely honest about informing the customer about the disadvantages mentioned in the video? If so, if they lose a sale because of doing that, would you be okay with Google disciplining them not to do that next time? Or would they just say, "Hey, that's fine, add some more points to the list of our disadvantages compared to Office for the next client call".

That is what I meant by sales is a dirty job, akin to a lawyer or a used car salesmen, it's just the nature of the job to bolster yourself and slam the competition.

>They blew an opportunity to brag about the superior features of Office and instead spent it slandering a competitor in the most hamfisted manner imaginableThey blew an opportunity to brag about the superior features of Office and instead spent it slandering a competitor in the most hamfisted manner imaginable

What? They talk positively all the time. For example see the other videos in their YouTube account, you wouldn't know would you. That's not news, really and those videos don't get many views. So I don't see a missed opportunity here. You're hyping this up as if this was a 2 minute Super Bowl ad. Or maybe it was one and I missed it and the HN'ers watched it.

I am not vouching for MS nor Google. I don't take sides. All what I am interested in is to know wether the examples given about google were valid or not.

oakgrove, you appear to be hellbanned. copying your useful comment:

In the context of the situation it doesn't matter. This person is a member of parliament who's time presumably is valuable and shouldn't be wasted listening to propaganda. Furthermore the person also said that the meeting was purported to be about one thing and when he went in to listen discovered that it was actually about something completely else. So they were dishonest in getting him to listen in the first place. I don't want a member of the government being duped into listening to anything via dishonest means and then sitting around thinking "Well they lied to me to get me in here but maybe they have some good points." If anything it's a shame the organizers of the event can't be brought up on charges. Criminal lying with the intent to deceive or something. /s