The line doesn't seem too long, until you turn the corner and realise it stretches around the block and out of sight. People close to the front have brought tents and blankets. One man has enough food for two days, and uses it to bribe the girl behind him while he takes toilet breaks. So what are they waiting for? It's not a queue for a Harry Potter book, or a Star Wars prequel.
It's the line for Windows 7. Or so Bill Gates would have you believe.

Really, Microsoft? Really?

When the US software giant released the latest iteration of its operating system in November, there was a marked difference in approach. There were no gigantic launches, no celebrity spruikers, no sky-writing or power point presentations. (Yes, Power Point is a Microsoft Office program. Yes, it hurts to insert it into this analogy. But there weren't.) What Microsoft tried to foster was a groundswell of popularity, a viral tidal wave of excitement that would not only see hordes of customers swarm into shops to purchase Windows 7, but then scurry home, quivering with excitement, and have a Tupperware party while they installed and enthused about it.

Yes, you read that right. A Tupperware party.

The clips need to be seen to be believed, but thankfully have been immortalised on YouTube (for a full list of all clips referenced in this article, have a look at the sidebar). The video is surreal - people standing around a kitchen talking about Windows 7 - and reports indicate some potential party hosts felt less than impressed by the manner in which they were depicted.

Lampooning has been absolutely rife, of course. It's hard to find the original clip on YouTube, a search that necessitates wading through edited clips, many of which are admittedly hilarious.

But in all seriousness, what did Microsoft expect? That people would have huge, sprawling house parties celebrating the launch of an operating system, eagerly-awaited not because it
represented a groundbreaking innovation in computing, but because its predecessor, Windows Vista, was so unstable it made the Indonesian tectonic plates look unremarkable, and so bug-ridden it should have come packaged with a can of Aeroguard?

Suspend disbelief for a moment, and say this breathless apprehension proved correct. But then, after rushing home to install it, these users would put down their mice, step away from their
keyboards, head into a kitchen, and chat about it? All this after waiting for its release at midnight?

In the interest of fairness, it must be said that some people did take part. There's a link (see right) to a blog featuring pictures from a Windows 7 party, with themed cupcakes and everything. Insert your own clever comment here.

It's probably bordering on harsh to mention the advertisements featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, especially as they're sort of charmingly inoffensive, but again one wonders at the rationalising going on at the Microsoft marketing department. If you see fit to write a script that involves your two leads calling each other by name in the first five seconds, just in case people watching might not know who they are, here's a thought - people watching might not know who they are. It's been almost a decade since Seinfeld went off air, and let's just say Gates isn't going to quit his day job and take up acting.

But the best, dear reader, has been saved for last. Even in an era of bizarre and brazen barrages of product placement, this takes the cake. Sponsoring a television program is one thing, but this was a step further - a decision to integrate not just advertising, but content, into a TV show.

You'd think Microsoft would then pick a show that was at least tenuously connected to the world in which it operates (say, The IT Crowd, or even The Big Bang Theory). But no. The decision went to Seth Macfarlane's Family Guy, a program critics such as The Seattle Times' Frazier Moore celebrated earlier this month as being "rude, crude, and deliciously wrong." Anyone smell the heady scent of trouble brewing?

Microsoft's attempt to purchase street cred, a currency more valuable than the flatlining US dollar, couldn't have gone more wrong. The plan was to have the show with all commercials replaced by Windows 7 spots. The Family Guy episode in question had jokes about incest, and feminine hygiene. What price a seat in the boardroom when the episode was screened to a room full of suits? Of course, there may have been something even more objectionable about the content. There's a link included to one of the prospective clips. It's not even remotely funny.

The show would have gone to air on November 8th, but Microsoft pulled the plug well before then, explaining its actions in fluent corporatese. Apparently "the content was not a fit with  the Windows brand". Indeed. It's a joke I cannot claim credit for, but it merits repeating - after an epic display of foresight, in the end, Family Guy just wasn't PC enough for Microsoft.
 

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