What Microsoft's Clever New 'I'm A PC, I'm An iPad' Spot SaysAbout The Company

Microsoft ‘s largely unsuccessful 8-month campaign to market Windows 8 and its newSurface tablets got a reboot at last with a new spot that takes direct aim at Apple ‘s cate-gory-leading iPad. The commercial is somewhat ironically titled “Less Talking, MoreDoing”. (It’s embedded below). Why the irony? Because to date the Surface campaignhas included exactly zero spoken words in either “The Vibe” or “ Movement” so to callthis one “ Less Talking…” well, yeah.

I’ve been highly critical of the convoluted marketing behind Surface as you can readabout in the included links to the left. Aside from the confusion generated by the twodifferent models (RT and Pro) with ostensibly very different buyers yet much in com-mon, the most confounding decision has been the message in all the advertising. Sure,the ads are everywhere and the tablet has perhaps the broadest television product-placement in history. But given that tablets are about touchscreens, it has long beenmystifying that the video spots nearly exclusively highlight the fact that Surface canbe used with keyboards.

“Less Talking” actually has no keyboard in it at all, except a piano keyboard Microsoftborrowed from Apple’s own launch spot for the iPad Mini. (It actually doesn’t have aSurface in it either; it has something called an Asus VivoTab Smart). And the compan-ion web page also is keyboard free. But what’s remarkable is how much the ad evokesthe old “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” spots Apple once used to get people to take a new look atits computers when Apple was desperately trying to make a comeback.

Now, I should be clear. This is a good ad. Using the voice of the iPhone’s Siri, it high-lights multiple capabilities of Windows 8 tablets in 30 seconds, including the visuallyfantastic Windows 8 interface with its “live tiles” that make iPad’s simple rows of iconslook as dated as its 6-year-old appearance truly is. That doesn’t stop tens of millions ofpeople from buying iPhones and iPads, of course, but it does make the Windows prod-uct feel newer.

After that, Microsoft shows off the fact that Window 8 tablets can run two apps at once,which some people might find appealing. But then it goes a bit off the rails by highlight-ing that one of them can be Powerpoint. Aside from the fact that Keynote on iOS is anexcellent alternative than costs $10, the idea that people are thinking, “Wow I was going

to buy an iPad but now I’m instead going to buy this Asus whatever-it’s-called becauseit runs Powerpoint!”

Finally, the spot highlights the Asus tablet is only $449, far cheaper than the $699 iPadit’s being compared to. Since it’s a full Windows 8 machine (not a Windows RT model),that means it probably has less than 25GB free while the iPad has closer to 60GB. It alsoruns an Intel Atom cheap, meaning it’s unlikely to be a very good Powerpoint machine,especially with its limited 2GB of RAM. But really, that’s all less remarkable than thefact that it’s cheaper than Microsoft’s own Surface RT, which starts at $499 and runs thestripped down version of Windows.

Microsoft isn’t selling many tablets – below 1 million in the most recent quarter accord-ing to IDC — and this marketing shift might not help matters much. But it’s a prettysharp shift nevertheless. Along with the new-ish Windows 8 spot “Favorite Things,”which is run of the mill, but at least does a solid job of highlighting why normal peoplemight want to use the new operating system, Microsoft is fighting back.

The fact that it’s fighting against a clearly non-PC tablet in the iPad with a full Windows8 tablet is perhaps a more subtle harbinger of the future of computing, one in which Mi-crosoft seems less well positioned. As PC sales continue to plummet — notebook saleswere down 24 percent in HP’s report yesterday — it’s becoming clearer and clearer thateven productivity applications are moving inexorably to the post-PC era. Sure, Mi-crosoft will sell a lot of Windows licenses to those still buying PCs, but the future ismostly elsewhere.

Strategically, the company has to decide how its going to profit from that future. Itseems unlikely Windows tablets are going to surpass iPads and Android tablets in vol-ume anytime soon and Windows Phone is destined for a similar also-ran position forthe foreseeable future. In the meantime, Microsoft’s Azure cloud business is boomingand Office has a cloud variant too. Perhaps it’s time to bring the latter to iPads and Sam-sung Galaxy Tabs before people finally decide they don’t care it’s missing. Of course,then Microsoft would have to stop making fun of iPads not being able to run Power-point. Seems like a small price to pay.

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