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photos by Lara Shipley

Gotcha

October 15th, 2002 · No Comments

You’ve all seen those Apple “switch” ads, right? The ones showing people — some seeming a little stoned, frankly — effusive about the wonders of switching from Windows to Mac? Well, it seems Microsoft tried to fight fire with fire by producing one of its own. The inauthentic language of the ad was a tip off that something wasn’t quite kosher. The fact that the picture of the “switcher” was a stock photo for sale on the internet was the clincher. Actual author of the “switch” ad? Why, an employee of Microsoft’s PR firm, of course. Oh, but she really did switch herself. Double pinky-swear.

Slashdot observes that they’re still at it: check out the “testimonial” and the source.

No wonder MS doesn’t trust open source. They think the Internet community is composed of idiots. What’s really offensive here is not so much the deception (I expect that from them) but the implied insult in such shoddy deception. But I guess it’s worth it for the entertainment value of realizing that they couldn’t manage to find anyone who had used another OS at any length and actually preferred Windows.

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