Microsoft's recent PR stunt

Posted Dec 27th 2006 11:55AM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Products and Services, Launches, Consumer Experience, Competitive Strategy, Microsoft (MSFT), Marketing and Advertising, Advanced Micro Dev (AMD)

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) together with Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD) has been sending bloggers who write about technology and about Microsoft free laptops. The laptops have Microsoft's new operating system Windows Vista installed on them for the bloggers to try and perhaps (favorably) review on their blogs. No strings attached, according to the bloggers.

As Microsoft is preparing for the launch of Windows Vista next month, it seems that its PR firm has taken the initiative to harness the ever increasing power of the blogging community, especially those power houses whose blogs are read by millions seeking advice on software, computers, gadgets and brands.

The (really cool) supercompact Ferrari Acer laptops sent to bloggers were installed with Windows Vista Ultimate, the business edition of Vista.

I'm not sure what, if anything, this indicates about Microsoft -- desperation or a simple PR stunt? Or maybe, more than anything, it shows something about the power of bloggers.

Tags: acer, acer ferrari, AcerFerrari, advanced micro devices, AdvancedMicroDevices, amd, ferrari, microsoft, msft, vista, windows, windows vista, WindowsVista

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

12-27-2006 @ 8:18PM

Roger Jennings said...

"The (really cool) supercompact Ferrari Acer laptops sent to bloggers were installed with Windows Vista Ultimate, the business edition of Vista."

The Ferrari 1000 that many bloggers got doesn't look that "really cool" to me. It scores a 2.8 (out of 5.9) Windows Experience Index, which is below the threshold for preloading Windows Vista. See http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/microsoft-gives-bloggers-sub-aero-28.html.

--rj

12-28-2006 @ 1:26PM

Jim Beske said...

So rich yet - so STUPID. Hey - let's give out free laptops to promote our "awesome" product...but don't send them a really nice one - they might think that we are trying to sway their decision making, blog-writing minds (fingers) into falsely promoting our product.