New Microsoft ads attack Apple prices

 

Gallery

By Barry Collins

Posted on 27 Mar 2009 at 06:58

Microsoft is continuing its assault on Apple's premium pricing with a new series of attack ads.

Last week, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said consumers wouldn't pay $500 more for a computer just because it had an Apple logo on the front.

Now the company is backing up the boss's blast with a series of television ads that highlight the pricing discrepancy between Windows and Mac machines.

The company's advertising agency hired 10 volunteers and sent them out to buy a computer on budgets ranging from $700 to $2,000 (£483 to £1,381).

The first ad sees a student buy a 17in Windows laptop for under $1,000, having spurned the only Mac laptop in her price range: a 13in MacBook. "I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person," she tells the camera (click here to watch the video).

Microsoft claims all 10 volunteers - who allegedly didn't know they were participating in a Microsoft ad at the time - picked a Windows machine.

The new ads are the latest in the "I'm a PC" series of commercials, that started with the ill-fated Bill Gates/Jerry Seinfeld partnership last year.

Microsoft is clearly hoping to build some momentum ahead of the launch of Windows 7, which could arrive as early as July according to a leak on Microsoft's TechNet website.