On aging gracefully

If those bizarre Microsoft ads featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, showing them wandering suburbia to no apparent purpose, are leaving you puzzled or annoyed, I have good news. You won't be puzzled or annoyed much longer.

Microsoft flacks are desperately dialing reporters to spin them about "phase two" of the ad campaign — a phase, due to be announced tomorrow, which will drop the aging comic altogether. Microsoft's version of the story: Redmond had always planned to drop Seinfeld. The awkward reality: The ads only reminded us how out of touch with consumers Microsoft is — and that Bill Gates's company has millions of dollars to waste on hiring a has-been funnyman to keep him company

This ad campaign is part of a major push, mentioned here last week, to upgrade the "Microsoft user experience." The Gates-Seinfeld collaboration is the initial phase of this multi-million dollar, multi-year project--none of which so far seems to involve actually making better-than-mediocre products.

It's an interesting marketing gambit, associating Windows Vista with concepts like "aging comic" and "has-been funnyman," But apparently the boys on the top floor felt this was an improvement over being associated with concepts such as "repeated delays," "frustrating technical problems," and "crash-prone."

"Aging comic?" "Has-been funnyman?" Ouch. Didn't they see "Bee Movie," available in DVD or Blu-Ray?