Thursday, October 16, 2008

"Without Walls"

So MS has a new set of TV spots in some sort of attempt to counter the (I presume) hugely successful Mac ad campaign. At the end of these "I'm a PC" spots, they show a Windows logo with the phrase "life without walls" underneath.

In the presumably intended sense, this is an outright lie. Vista with its closed source, proprietary formats, and built-in DRM is one of the most limiting OSes out there.

Then in a sadly ironic sense, it is quite true. "Without walls" is an apt description of Windows system security, which is so bad that network administrators are turning to fascist measures to keep virus-ridden boxes off their networks.

Then there's the pun aspect. Windows... walls... ....except, ... it makes no sense. Windows are openings in walls. Sure you could take a window unit from the hardware store sans wall and still call it a window, but what good it it? Just a heavy, fragile, useless lump until you mount it in a hole in the wall. Come to think of it, maybe windows without walls is a good analogy for their OS.

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