[Ghoser777]

I won't lay out the entire script as if I knew how to make an effective ad, but here's the main gist of an ad that I've been thinking about for a while:

1. Ask the audience to think of one product that they buy that they have no choice in.
2. Then ask the audience what choices do they have in a computer operating system: Windows 95/98/2002/XP...
3. If there's only one company in the OS market, Microsoft, how is their choice or competition, the bed rock of the US economy? (I'll be American-centric for the moment).
4. Microsoft is a monopoly, but the US Gov't has only given a small slap on the rist, a pocket change bill to a billion dollar company.
5. It's time for consumers to make the decision to recognize and bolster competition in the marketplace.
6. Linux is one of the fastest growing alternatives to Windows
7. The Mac is Back - if you haven't tried a mac for a while, it's been completely over hauled, stable, and a real alternative to Windows
8. Please help bring competition to the Operating System market.

Or something with these ideas, overtones, etc presented in some cool, script form.

Honestly, at this point it's up to the consumer if they want competition. So why doesn't Apple (or a Linux Distro) start harping this position (besides the fact the Microsoft would pull support for Office on the Mac... grr).

Just a thought,
Matt Fahrenbacher

[MacManMikeOSX]

trillion dollar company......

[decursive]

how powerful a company is makes no difference to the consumer. how well the product performs does.

[theory]

I think the script you proposed critices M$ as an instituition as opposed to the effectivness of it's product. I don't think that will be good for apple/M$ relationships.

But there are alot of people who care about the company as much as the product the problem is that for OSes those people
will probably using mac/unix/linux.

[bstad]

"how powerful a company is makes no difference to the consumer. how well the product performs does."

Hmmm....is that why VHS became more popular than Beta?

[decursive]

Originally posted by bstad:
"how powerful a company is makes no difference to the consumer. how well the product performs does."

Hmmm....is that why VHS became more popular than Beta?

no, no, no. you're looking at it in the wrong context. i am talking about ads, not the success of a product. in an ad, you want to sell the product, not discourage another company. saying "we're smaller, buy from us" doesn't work. but listing the advantages might. betamax failed simply because it had little to no ads. if it and vhs had had the same number of ads and had far less availability, betamax would have quickly become popular. hope that made sense.

[drmcnutt]

Originally posted by bstad:
"how powerful a company is makes no difference to the consumer. how well the product performs does."

Hmmm....is that why VHS became more popular than Beta?

So your saying VHS had an unfair monopoly and took advantage of other standards because of it?

[Appleman]

Originally posted by bstad:
"how powerful a company is makes no difference to the consumer. how well the product performs does."

Hmmm....is that why VHS became more popular than Beta?

VHS won the race because of marketposition, instead of Sony (Beta) or even Philips (inventor of video with Video 2000 system, which was much better, could do still images without horizontal lines, could do two sides taping like their original invention: cassette tape).

A better product has nothing to do with market share. Apple and M$ proof this.

Nothing new.

[TC]

how well the product performs does.

No, popularity is not a measure of performance. There are lots of other factors including timing, luck and stupidity on the part of your competitors.