Supposedly, Apple Legal picked up the phone and gave their old friends at Redmond a call, and asked them to stop running its “Laptop Hunter” ads. Microsoft COO Kevin Turner had this to say during his keynote speech at the 2009 Worldwide Partner Conference.
And so we’ve been running these PC value ads. Just giving people saying, hey, what are you looking to spend? “Oh, I’m looking to spend less than $1,000.” Well we’ll give you $1,000. Go in and look and see what you can buy. And they come out and they just show them. Those are completely unscripted commercials.
And you know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey — this is a true story — saying, “Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.” They took like $100 off or something. It was the greatest single phone call in the history that I’ve ever taken in business. (Applause.)
I did cartwheels down the hallway. At first I said, “Is this a joke? Who are you?” Not understanding what an opportunity. And so we’re just going to keep running them and running them and running them.
Call me skeptical, but I just don’t buy this. For starters, since when does Apple Legal actually pick up the phone instead of mailing a letter, as is the standard practice in the legal world? Second, what are the odds that the guy who received the phone call just happened to be the same guy giving the keynote? Third, if Apple was really serious about this, they would have sent a cease and desist letter to Microsoft and would have followed up instead of making a weak telephone request and then forgetting about the whole thing.
This whole thing seems kinda fishy, and our guess is that it was simply an exaggerated story meant to rally up the troops and demonstrate just how successful Microsoft’s ads have been.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Thank you. At least there is one journalist/reporter willing to be skeptical and not accept what one source says (Microsoft). I agree, this is all fishy PR baloney on Microsoft.
July 16th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Sounds much more plausible than the way this story has been presented on the web. It looks like another feeble attempt by Microsoft at making it look like their cheap PCs attacks are working against Apple. I am seeing more people amongst my acquaintances buying Macs rather than PCs so the cheap PC ads is not working in my neck of the wood.
July 16th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Those ads are great. Apple did the same thing to them and now they’re whinging about it.
July 16th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
I don’t Believe this Either, This is not Apple way of dealing with any legal matter, It seems more like someone making up stories and in all instances as we have known Apple to be Very “Non Disclosing” with information, Especial Legal matters.
I call fail on this and Need more Proof of a conversation, sounds like some joker pulled a fast one on Microsoft’s legal, and soon we will see Microsoft back tracking with there supposed comments.
Remember there is a Market for Morning Radio D.J. That pull fast ones like this, And it looks like Microsoft will be dodging the embarrassment of this soon.
Will See, but it’s not Like Apple at all.
July 17th, 2009 at 8:43 am
In fact, just exactly what is the source of this story? If the only source is indeed this one MS man, indeed it is suspect. Unfortunately, lying to get ahead is culturally acceptable in this day and age. This is quite possibly a lie, and yet on other blogs and their commentators, this is accepted as a fact.
It is amusing that MS is so freaked out by Apple. Hmm let’s see, their OS is on some 90% of computers out there. What is the porblem MS? Goliath is remarkably paranoid about David lately.
July 19th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
If anything, the ads highlight Macs as the favored choice.
September 1st, 2009 at 8:42 pm
I actually saw Apple’s ad response to this campaign and I have to say, as a PC user, I must be very lucky to even post this seeing as how my (actually every according to Apple) PC is filled and under attack by thousands of viruses.
Ridiculous claims* aside, both ad campaigns are BS. Because with Apple you’re paying for the aesthetic, and with everything that runs Windows out of the box you get nickle and dimed on everything else you need.
*Yes, I am aware that there are more viruses for PCs than Macs, but that’s what a security suite is for. And if you think it’s cool to roll without one on your Mac, well, I’m sure the genius bar will be happy to perpetually fix your computer for you.