Don't expect 'Googlighting' pilot to be picked up for a full season
Vendor vs. vendor advertising spats can be enormously entertaining, although such cannot be said for this latest attempt by Microsoft to get under Google’s skin.
A YouTube video called Googlighting, it’s a lame take-off on the ’80s TV show Moonlighting, which I recall with a fondness that I cannot articulate beyond the words Cybill and Shepherd. This attempted remake, however, fails on a variety of levels, perhaps most obviously because the Google character (he was a baby Bruce Willis on TV) is so cartoonishly smarmy that there’s simply no way to laugh at him.
Watch or don’t, it’s all the same to me:
As for the message – Microsoft Office good, Google Apps bad – I had too much trouble forcing myself to watch all two minutes and 16 seconds to give the content much thought. Fortunately, I spotted an analysis by Rob Colbert, a programmer who recently left VMWare, on Google+ (Google got slammed on its own turf; might as well be defended there). Colbert writes:
Dear Microsoft,
In consideration of: Googlighting
The world is simply different today. The Internet is now more broad than you realize. Cloud-based applications are dominating the landscape, and you don’t have any. Your FUD-tastic Googlighting advertisement (see above) actually makes you look like you’re in a state of panic. That’s good. “Old IT” will respond to that.
But…
And Colbert ticks off a half-dozen counterpoints to the arrows fired by Microsoft at Google.
It’s a far better performance than the video.
(Note: This post has been edited to correct Colbert’s employment status, which, if you’re looking for a programmer, is “available for hire.”)
