Microsoft has a new video on the YouTubes that mocks Apple’s App Store. Or means to. Inadvertently, it seems, it attempts to mock any number of companies–Google, Apple, Palm, Blackberry–for making good smartphones that run good software. Is Microsoft bullying the real smartphone innovators for being too smart? Are we in 6th grade? What the hell?
Here’s the video:
The milieu: a Bill Nye-looking laboratory, presumably like the one that Apple uses to vet its apps. The conceit is that third-party developers are building silly apps and submitting them for approval, wasting the company’s time. Except that in every app store out there, users find literally tens of thousands of useful, fun and sometimes vital apps for their phones. And they pay for them. It’s as if Microsoft is accusing those developers of being a waste of time or a hassle, when in fact those same coders could be sending Microsoft 30 cents on the dollar. That is, if Microsoft had an app store.
Bizarrely, the ad ends with a quick plug for Windows Marketplace, which is Microsoft’s online store, where you can buy crap like mice and Windows. On what planet does this comparison work–or this ad–do anything to make Microsoft look less than oblivious?
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