Kyle LeBoeuf

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard about the ads that Microsoft recently released, targeting what tech-pundits call the “Apple-tax”, or the high premium on Apple products when compared to products from other companies that are released to the same markets. 

There clearly is a premium involved when purchasing Apple products, but the problem with accusing Apple of jacking up prices for better margins is that most people are aware of the premium for Apple products.

Something that many tech-pundits and big tech companies do not understand, is that the customer is always right.

Always.

People pay a premium for Macs because customers of Apple products claim they are a superior product. If someone wants the reliability that a Mac affords, they are going to pay the premium. Someone buys a Mac because they are willing to pay the price what they want

These ads make it seem like the premium a veil before people’s eyes. It isn’t.

Hey Microsoft: how about working more on making your product not suck, instead of wasting marketing dollars on crap like this? Someone in Microsoft forgot about the EPIC FAIL that is Windows Vista.

This ad from Apple says it all:

disclosure: I am an Apple Certified OS X Support Professional 10.5 and am employed by an Apple Value-Added Reseller and Authorzied Service Provider.

Imagine this scenario:

You are part of a multi-billion software company, with your software being used on anywhere from 90-95% of all computers in the world. Now, imagine that you are working on the next highly-anticipated iteration of your flagship product. You announce that you will be distributing a free beta of this new product to the public, to folks who offer good feedback on your product for free, on top of allowing consumers to get used to the product and getting to see it in action.

Now, imagine that after building up anticipation for the release of this beta, you launch this product using servers designed to handle a small fraction of this expected demanded. Your servers crash, leaving millions of customers (and writers) frustrated, for something you should’ve been prepared for in the first place.

Yes folks, this actually happened. That company’s name is none other than Microsoft! They announced that 2.5 million downloads of the Windows 7 Beta 1 would be available to the public, and the story was picked up by tons of different blogs and publications. The publicity surrounding this beta was extremely high, especially following the Microsoft Keynote at CES and the flurry of coverage surrounding the operating system at that time.

So, you’re Microsoft, and you see that everyone knows about the download you will be posting, and what do you do? In this case, Microsoft decided not to prepare for the surge in traffic. Their reward? Server crashes and lot of upset folks. They were forced to pull down their servers while they upgrade the infrastructure and prepare for the traffic (WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!).

Here’s an image, for effect (click to make larger):

From the Windows 7 beta download page:

“Thanks for your interest in the Windows 7 Beta. The volume has been phenomenal — we’re in the process of adding more servers to handle the demand. We’re sorry for the delay and we’ll re-post the Beta as soon as we can ensure a quality download experience.”

Gina Trapani, top editor for the blog Lifehacker, shares my sentiments.

Come on Microsoft. We all know that you’ve got a ton of cash laying around. Invest in the hardware, spend the money, and don’t disappoint your market.

Kyle