Microsoft: Running scared

Were you to look at the news in the past couple days, you might be excused for thinking that we'd revved the DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour and jumped back to the good old days, when Microsoft and Apple were constantly at each others' throats. Only this time, the positions are seemingly reversed: it's Apple who's flying high, and Microsoft who's trying to play the part of the scrappy underdog.

Apple has gained a lot of traction over the past decade. The iPod pushed the company back into the mainstream, and Cupertino only continued gaining currency as Mac OS X matured and it released some of the slickest machines around. Add in Microsoft's own problems dealing with Windows XP and its less-than-stellar successor, Vista, and Microsoft has started seeming like a non-entity these days.

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Google's recent announcement that it's working on an OS--even though it won't ship for at least a year--prompted numerous articles wondering about whether or not the vague foray by the search engine giant would be enough to topple the dwindling but still powerful Microsoft hegemony. Ten years ago, there was nobody with that kind of clout.

Microsoft has tried to strike back, but the company's public relations machine has never been quite on par with Apple's, at least when it comes to style and creativity. A daring first attempt at an advertising series featuring Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld was amusing, but many viewers were more perplexed than intrigued, and the series lasted a mere two spots. Subsequently, Microsoft tried to co-opt Apple's popular "I'm a Mac" ad series with several "I'm a PC" spots, but the result was even more eyebrow-raising, as it mainly served to confer a degree of legitimacy on Apple's original commercials.

That led us directly to into the realm of Microsoft's Laptop Hunters series, in which mere mortals--people like you and me! Well, except when they're actors--are told that if they can find a computer underneath a certain price ceiling, Microsoft will buy it for them. The ads themselves were clear shots at Apple, whose products have a history of commanding a price premium over their PC counterparts. In most of the spots, Macs are derided as being underpowered and more expensive.

That's three major strategies in a matter of months, which gives the impression of Microsoft throwing spitballs at a wall until one of them sticks. So far, Laptop Hunters has been the most successful for Microsoft, spawning half a dozen different spots, and--according to Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner--even prompting a phone call from Apple's legal department asking that Microsoft cease airing the ads, due to recent aggressive price cuts by Cupertino that rendered the commercials out of date.