Perhaps the reason the Vista video (below) looks so bad is becasue of the iPod packaging video (above) The Vista one just isn’t honest enough so at one level looks almost real. Therfore, you’re never quite sure if it’s meant to be a joke or if they really feel that way. The iPod video is brutally honest. The iPod video makes Microsoft look good because they’ve met the elephant in the room head on. Apple makes nice clean packaging Microsoft make stickered up stuff that looks a bit naff* It’s refereshing and it highlights the brand difference nicely.

The Vista video on the other hand looks like the managment team trying to do the same thing but within ‘company guidelines’. The elephant in the room is that Vista isn’t doing as well (in the press at least) as Microsoft hoped but SP1 should change all that and the sales team (the indended audience for this I assume) can use SP1 as leverage to overcome the objection that XP works fine. I could be completely wrong (I often am) but the expensive looking profduction does’nt help either. Dancing in the dark probably wasn’t such a good choice either why not Born to run?

(* I say naff because I like Apple packaging others may not see a problem)