Category Archives for "Soft Sell"

“Trust Me” Means They’re Telling the Truth this Time

The latest Macintosh vs. PC commercial on television, Broken Promises, is rapidly winning me over as the PC guy comes out to say that his newest Windows 7 is really reliable and has fixed the major glitches with that infamous line, “trust me.” Then Mac asks him, didn’t I hear you say that before? The writers of this soft sell TV commercial then leads us back through the past few decades of Windows editions, each time PC claims to have fixed the problems, “trust me.”

Like a Battered Spouse, I Keep Believing their Promises not to Abuse Me Any More

Watching this commercial made me realize that my love for the Windows operating system, which goes back to 1992 when I first used Windows 3.1, is much like the battered spouse syndrome. I’m not being flip here and devaluing the pain that spouses go through. Please give me a moment to see my point, because abuse can be emotional too. And there can be different degrees of it.

Over the decades Microsoft has used promises and glib statements to promote their next version of Windows, the latest and greatest with features you can’t live without as well as fixes to the overwhelming problems of the last version. With some trepidation,Continue reading