HOME / technology: The future and what to do about it.

The Poor Man's MacMicrosoft wants you to buy PCs because they're cheaper than Apple products, not because they're better machines.

By Farhad ManjooPosted Thursday, April 2, 2009, at 4:21 PM ET

One surefire way of inciting violence among techies is to wonder idly whether Apple computers are really worth their inflated price tags. Mac devotees are sensitive about this subject: Tell a Mac-head that you can't understand why anyone would pay $1,300 for a MacBook when a comparable Dell sells for $900 and you might as well be calling him a vain fool. Who wants to be regarded as paying for style over substance? Then try suggesting to your Windows-loving pal that there's more to choosing a computer than looking for the lowest price. What about ease of use, long-term value, and the sheer pleasure of using a Mac? Now you're calling your Windows friend a cheapskate. Either way, you're asking for a black eye—or, at least, a three-hour earful about why price should or shouldn't matter in your next computer purchase. (The black eye may be preferable.)

RSS

Until recently, both Apple and Microsoft have shied away from the price fight. In its "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads, Apple avoids mentioning its machines' higher prices; instead, it takes on Windows' shortcomings. The implication is that if you go for a PC to save money, you'll get what you pay for. I've been chronicling Microsoft's evolving marketing strategy for a few months, and I've been mainly critical. The "Mojave Experiment," which tricked people into trying Vista, didn't exactly inspire confidence in the operating system's standalone merits. And its last big campaign, featuring an ethnically diverse lot declaring that they were PCs, came off as the company trying too hard to be cool. Now Microsoft has taken off the gloves. In Web and TV spots that began airing during March Madness, the company is going after what it considers Apple's greatest vulnerability, especially during this economy: Macs are too damned expensive.

The spots are the end result of a challenge that Microsoft's ad agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, put to a few telegenic young people in Los Angeles. It offered them between $700 and $2,000 to buy any computer that they wanted and let them keep whatever they didn't spend. In the first ad to air, a pretty, spunky redhead named Lauren is looking for a laptop with a 17-inch screen for less than $1,000. She goes to an Apple store and discovers that only the $999 13-inch MacBook is in her price range. Apple's 17-inch MacBook Pro goes for $2,799, way beyond Lauren's budget. "I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person," she huffs. Then she goes to Best Buy and finds an HP notebook that fits her specs selling for just $699.99. She's elated—"I got everything that I wanted for under $1,000!"

Predictably, Mac partisans have found much to criticize in the spot. They say it appears staged, and they note that Lauren is an actress. Plus, they insist she'll regret buying that cheapo machine—it's terribly slow, has old-model parts, meager battery life, weighs a ton, is packed with annoying trial software, and features Windows Vista Home, the most basic version of Microsoft's operating system. "It is the epitome of what people dislike about PCs," writes Computerworld's Seth Weintraub.

And that suggests the danger here for Microsoft. In the short run, its strategy makes some sense. The ads are well-produced, entertaining, and get across the basic point very well—if you, like Lauren, are on a budget, there are many Macs that you simply can't afford. Today, lots of people are on a budget. Apple's sales, which were flying high last year, have recently begun to show some strain.

But it's a terrible strategy for the long term. What happens when the economy improves? What happens when young, telegenic people in L.A. can once again spend $1,300 or $1,500 or more for a laptop? What will they do when they hear from Lauren that her $700 machine is grindingly slow and that hauling it around is cramping her acting career? By selling people lots of cheap Windows PCs now, Microsoft risks cementing the idea that PCs are cheap. And in the computer business, "cheap" isn't an adjective you want to court. Customers may start to think that paying a bit more will get them something better. And when they can afford to pay more, they will.

Page: 1 | 2 SINGLE PAGE

E-MAIL

RECOMMEND... Get Slate RSS Feeds

Farhad Manjoo is Slate's technology columnist and the author of True Enough: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society. You can e-mail him at and follow him on Twitter.

Illustration by Robert Neubecker.

What did you think of this article?

Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum

POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES