Marketing battle
by Ragnar Schierholz
This is what happens if marketing teams get a little picky on each other:
- BMW is proud winner of an award.
- So is Audi.
- Subaru thinks it plays in the same league.
- Only the Brits from Bentley practice the proverbial reserve.
[Thanks, Ritschie!]
Comments
So, who are the four players here? IBM, Microsoft, Google and Open Source? :-)
Yeah right. Volker, Microsoft is winning an endurance and reliability test. Sure.
You should check the radiation level of your new skype phone. ;-)
Oops. Make that Microsoft, IBM, Google and Open Source. I have a hard time getting Audi and IBM design inline though. So I may have to move it to third place. :-)
3 years ago I would have agreed with you Volker, but they've been upgrading themselves the last little while. Maybe your right it's only BMW but no longer Subaru. Unfortunately Subaru hasn't kept up - but their all-wheel drive is still fabulous and reliable in these Canadian winters. They are tanks.
Instead of a competition - if you can imagine yourself as the customer viewing the advert then clearly the last one is Microsoft :)
One of the reasons we are now happy Mac home users instead of Windows. Does anyone know how to run the OS/X on a Thinkpad - cause I'd be there if it was possible. The Thinkpads are to laptops what the Macs are to PC's. One area that the Mac is a letdown in comparison. The Thinkpad keyboard is beautiful - unmatched by a very very large margin - it makes you want to use it and cry when you have to use something else. Not to mention the pointer and keeping fingers on the home keys as you mouse around..please Steve just license the damn stuff. Please.
Steve can't just license the stuff. One of the key reasons Windows has so many challenges is that it supports a much wider variety of hardware and third party drivers. Apple never has.
Andrew, why wouldn't Apple be able to license the hardware of the track pin from IBM's/Lenovo's supplier? I'm sure they could get it to work with MacOS. After all, it works with Linux (?) and Windows also. So one would assume it appears to be just another mouse device.
I actually didn't even think of a mapping into the software vendor world. Now that you started it, Open Source is probably undisputed as number four.
Maybe SAP or Oracle could be in third as well.
I would rather see IBM on par with BMW as well.
I couldn't see Microsoft on par with Audi's fine technology. Design, maybe, that's a matter of taste, but actually I've never thought of MS's products to be as sleek as Audi's.
Apple would probably more a candidate to take Audi's place. And the "I'm a Mac! I'm a PC." campaign could actually be from the same office as Audi's response here :-). Think of the first aluminium car, the quattro, these have been inventions by Audi in the car business which could match Apple's in the IT business, don't you think?
Andrew I understand that part of Apples success is their desire to think about stuff differently, but the gap is just so wide I wish Steve would make this exception - or come up with something better if he can't admit they have been out designed. Just a wish. I'm sure many Thinkpad users feel the same way - it's one crowd the switch campaign has a tough time against. Given it's hardware with a little tiny bit of software I think it's other issues at play - perception, licensing fees etcs.
Stephen, ThinkPads are indeed really nice, especially the keyboard. But Andrew is right. OS X has the luxury of only needing to support a finite number of machines. And most Windows BSODs have their root cause in faulty drivers.
I have been a ThinkPad person myself. And I will choose them any day against any other make of Windows notebook. I have to say though that the Macbook I currently use is hands down the best machine I ever had.
Stephen, it does work and quite well with wlan and all stuff. But of course not officially and not above board. Just search in the appropriate web sites...
Bentley's owner is the Volkswagen Group. Who also happens to own Audi.
Marketing teams not talking to each other?
Oh Martin now you've got me going...
Volker, Andrew.
Doesn't really matter cause it ain't going to happen, just commenting on what I think they can improve. My wife has one, the keys are better than any other windows laptop but not a thinkpad. Btw, we bought some HP's at work instead of the Thinkpads - what a pile of crap - we are back to the Thinkpads now.
Btw, I've turned off the touchpad..i HATE it. yes Hate. Touchpad's - anybody's - are a blight on computerkind. That someone probably made millions on the patents just makes it even more annoying :) Was it Apple? Part of the reason I would have a tough time adjusting to an apple laptop...I could probably live with downgrading the keyboard but that damn touchpad..shoot me now.
Stephen, I hear you. I was also fond of the Trackpoint. Three years ago I learned the Touchpad. And I am not going back. Even on a Thinkpad I use the Touchpad if I can.
Again, you are right. Thinkpad keyboards are wonderful.
It did take me a week or two to get really proficient with the trackpoint, so it may be a case of not giving the touchpad enough time. Who knows - maybe I could love it.
Oh my god, I just realised it's been close to ten years with the trackpoint - bought one of those special ibm desktop keyboards on the hunch it just made more sense..years before I got my hands on a thinkpad. Had this neat side-effect of keeping people off my machine as well.
If Martin's suggestion doesn't pan out, maybe it's time for an affair..
Speaking of reserve:
Anybody notice the understatement on Audi's part?
Or is it that they just can't count?
"Winner of six consecutive Le Mans 24 hour races 2000-2006"
It's sort of a lie. They won 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006. In 2003 Bentley won.
Wikipedia is very polite in saying:
The Bentley EXP Speed 8 is a LMP race car that competed in the Le Mans series from 2001 to 2003, taking first place in 2003. It has a strong resemblance to and shares some technology with the Audi R8C (which cars won Le Mans the preceding 3 years).
In 2003 there was no Audi works team. In a way, they gave this away to Bentley.
Here is a list of the winners. Interesting tidbit: In 1971 the Porsche 917K completed more laps in Les Mans than any of the Audis today.
I used to hate Touchpads with a vengance. Tap-to-click and the hyper sensitivity of those tiny little pads just make for a really bad experience. (scroll on the right side, touch left corner to do this, right corner to do that, bottom side for god knows what - and of course the driver activates everything by default). Give me a trackpoint any time.
The PowerBook / MacBook Pro and MacBook trackpads play in an entirely different league. They are much larger than your regular PC laptop touchpad. The sesitivity just feels right. The defaults are sensible (i.e. acts as a mouse). And the optional two-finger scrolling just makes so much sense.
Maybe the PC manufacturers should license Apples touchpads?
Well, I seriously don't like the touchpads on any standard laptop (hey, you can run other OS's too on these things you call Windows laptops!). Mine on the ThinkPad is deactivated at any time as well. But then I must admit I never had the chance to work on a Mac laptop, thus don't know about the Mac touchpads. So how about this suggestion: Apple licenses the hardware for the TrackPin and other manufacturers license Apple's touchpad and either manufacturer lets the customer choose which on to use?
Oh, by the way: How in the world did we get from car commercials to the licensing of pointing device hardware???
Interesting. But what about DaimlerChrysler formerly known as Mercedes-Benz? ;-)
