In yet another ad meant to sway new tablet buyers away from Apple, and toward the brave new world of Windows 8, Microsoft has once again enlisted Siri to pitch their product, this time for Dell's XPS 10 tablet.
In 30 seconds, Microsoft's ad pitches some of the benefits of owning a Windows 8 tablet over an iPad running iOS, such as the ability to pinch to zoom to see more apps on the home screen, built-in SD card compatibility, running two apps on the same display, and a lower price. Redmond not only enlists Apple’s intelligent virtual assistant to push their own product in this ribbing ad, it also mimics Apple’s own advertising style, showing two tablets side by side against a backdrop of white.
The commercial begins with Microsoft pointing out that users can’t pinch on the home screen to see multiple pages of apps.
“I’m sorry, I can’t zoom like that,†says the soon-to-be updated Siri, in a robotic monotone.
The Dell tablet user then slides in an SD card from their camera, while the same action on the iPad prompts Siri to protest, “You can’t put an SD card there, or there, or there.â€
She then compliments Windows 8’s ability to run two apps on the same screen before lamenting about the iPad's $599 price tag, which is $200 more than the Dell XPS 10’s current special offer price of $399. What the ad doesn’t mention is that the XPS 10 normally starts at $449 when it’s not on sale.
These parody ads are becoming common for the Microsoft, which has not only mocked Apple and Siri, but also Android and Samsung in its take on the smartphone war, a fight in which Windows Phone is all but absent.
The timing of the most recent commercial is particularly interesting.
Microsoft released Office 365 Mobile for iPhone earlier today, but left both the iPad and Android devices in the cold. This can be been seen as an attempt to drive more Windows 8 tablets sales which, as seen in a previous and similar ad, is capable of running PowerPoint.
There’s also the old argument that Windows 8 only boasts a library of 65,000 apps or so, while iOS carried more than 250,000 as of July 2012. What Microsoft wants customers to remember, of course, is that Office can’t be found in Apple’s expansive collection.