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Review: I Am a PC

On Monday, I lamented the loss of the Seinfeld Microsoft ads, which have been replaced by the "I'm a PC" commercials.

Here's my review: First, the commercials, by taking on Apple's characters, are overly defensive. Last time I checked, Windows was still the market leader. The commercials sound like a high school student who was stood up at the prom. And while they point out that Windows is effective for many, many people, they don't articulate what's so great about it.

The PC revolution has inspired our global economy, led to many technical and creative inventions, changed our very culture, and made the world more unified through nearly ubiquitous communication. Grandparents talk to grandkids a hundred or more miles away, college students e-mail parents...and not always to ask for money!

PCs are also a stunningly great bargain. With so many providers, prices steadily fall, and this commodity hardware is able to run everything from XP to all the major flavors of Linux (note that I left out Mac OS and Vista).

The PC industry has many things to be proud of, none of which I saw in these commercials. Maybe that will be in the next batch.

Are you a PC? Thoughts on these ads welcome at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on September 24, 2008


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