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June 13, 2006

Touche, Indeed

Apple's recent "Get A Mac" ad campaign (starring the deadpan-awesome John Hodgman and the hip-yet-puppy-ish Justin Long) has generated a lot of buzz over the past couple months, most notably because it's a) funny, b) does a great job of talking to the genuine advantages of the Mac, and c) seems to be a reload of Apple's failed "Switch" campaign of a few years ago.

I've argued since January that, despite Apple's failure with "Switch", it was going to keep on trying to woo Windows users as a way of growing its business. Specifically, my theory is that one big reason Apple chose Intel chips to power future Macs was because they would also be able to run Windows.

Well, last night Apple came out with three new ads in the "Get A Mac" campaign - "Work vs. Home", "Out of the Box" and "Touche." My immediate reaction upon seeing "Touche" (2.4MB QuickTime) was pretty immediate:

Holy crap! Could Apple be more blatant that it wants the Windows business?

The intro to the ad goes like this:

Mac: Hello, I'm a Mac.
PC: And I'm a PC.
Mac: And I'm a PC, too.
PC: And I - what?
Mac: Yeah, now you can run Mac OS X, or Windows, on a Mac. So in a way I'm kinda like the only computer you'll ever need.

If there was ever any doubt - any smidgen of anything, lingering back there - that full-blooded, 100%, gen-you-eyne Windows compatibility was a core part of Apple's strategy for the next five years, well, it just evaporated. Right this moment, this very second, Apple is pouring tens of millions of dollars into TV time, convincing people that they don't have to give up anything if they buy a Mac. As I said back in April:

So if I'm a consumer, and I see a Sony laptop for $2000 that runs Windows alongside an Apple laptop for $2000 that runs Windows and Mac OS X, well, which is the better value? The Mac is. No question. It's the no-compromise choice. In one fell swoop, Apple has just captured all of the value of its rival PC makers, while continuing to provide the same great stuff (iLife, OS X) that comes with their own machines.

And today, in a case of serendipitous timing, AppleInsider reported that analysts at Needham & Co. upgraded Apple stock to "Buy" (from "Hold") due to the firm's new ability to go after the Windows market:

In a recent survey commissioned by the firm, 8 percent of Windows users in the U.S home market said they would switch to a Mac if it could also run Windows. Such a shift in consumer preference would effectively increase Apple's share of the US and European home markets to 12.2 percent, the firm said.

"An increase of this magnitude would almost triple Apple’s share in the home market and increase it 75 percent worldwide," said analyst Charles Wolf. "Although a seemingly small percentage, it nonetheless dwarfs Apple’s current share of the home market."

For me, though, the interesting bit is when you divert your attention to the other ad ("Out of the Box" (2.4 MB, QuickTime), that you start to see the threads of what's going to happen.

Apple prizes itself on its superior out-of-the-box experience, and rightly so. Unfortunately, Boot Camp, great as it is, is not for garden-variety consumers. And although the ad says, "Purchase of Windows XP required" in the corner (and in small letters), you must know that today, right now, you can't just take a Mac home and run Windows apps on it. This puts the message of "Touche" in direct opposition with the message of "Out of the Box" (which is - in case you haven't guessed from the title - that Macs just run once you plug 'em in, while PCs need all kinds of setup time). Today, getting Boot Camp to work consists of:

• Understanding the product and its limitations;
• Installing it (doing appropriate firmware preflight, partitioning your drive, burning a CD, and whatnot);
• And then installing XP (SP2 only, please).

This is hardly a set of instructions that can be followed by Jane and Joe Consumer.

So, Apple being Apple, I predict they're going to simplify it. Clean it up. Do the iPod routine on their Windows experience. Today, "Touche" builds awareness, helps prospective customers harmonize Apple's message with what they're seeing in the press. But tomorrow (oh, say, when Leopard comes out), I fully expect that you'll be able to yank your '07 iMac out of the box, plug it in, and just start installing Office 2007. It'll Just Work(tm).

I'd like to close on an anecdote. Some folks have suggested to me that Boot Camp is really just a way of helping the Mac faithful hold on to their dignity ("You can actually buy software for that funny computer of yours!"), and won't grow the Apple market in any significant way. While the Needham report points out how silly that is, my personal experience disconfirms it, too. Long-time Windows-using friends of mine are now asking me all the time about buying Macs.

And then, yesterday, I'm at a TechEd presentation where one of the (non-Microsoft) presenters gave his spiel on a 15" MacBook Pro running XP under Boot Camp.

At TechEd.

Really.

That's gotta be some kind of sea change in Apple's perception by the Windows-using community, huh?

Posted by Gavin Shearer at June 13, 2006 8:15 PM. Posted to Apple.

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Posted by: Cintra Pollack at June 15, 2006 12:58 PM

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