The Browser You Loved to Hate

I didn't plan on giving Microsoft so much free attention by posting their videos, but this one is fascinating.  It has a computer geek in therapy admitting he used to uninstall Internet Explorer from everyone's computer, but he's over it now "because IE9 is actually good."

Best line:  "The only thing Internet Explorer is good for is downloading other browsers."

Unlike the other Microsoft videos I have posted, this one doesn't target Google specifically, but Microsoft is clearly wary of the browser competition that is slowly eating away its market dominance.  Depending on which browser usage statistics you prefer (here is one version), IE is steadily losing ground and Google Chrome is close to overtaking Firefox as IE's main competition.

Admitting your product used to be awful is a risky move, but honesty could actually work.  That is, if the new IE9 browser is actually as good as they say it is.  My experience says it's not.

I use IE9 at my client's location specifically to access Sharepoint and Outlook Webmail.  Sharepoint works better in IE9 than in Chrome, but Webmail is glitchy in IE9.  (The delete email icon generates an error more than half the time, and it hangs occasionally when trying to send an email.)  Strangely enough, Webmail is not glitchy in Chrome.  If I were Microsoft making both IE9 and Outlook Webmail, you'd think I would intentionally make Webmail work best in IE9.  Alas, not so.

This leads me to believe that Microsoft will be able to recycle this same ad campaign for IE10 too.

Microsoft's New Video Mocking Google

Last year I posted a video from Microsoft mocking Google's Gmail.  The Gmail-man clip was funny and well-written, if not completely accurate in the information it conveyed.  I thought it was a good jab at the competition.

Now Microsoft has a new video mocking Google Documents, called "Googlighting."  Unfortunately this one is not funny, just desperate.  It's obvious that Microsoft sees Google as a threat to its own Office 365 cloud services.