Today, Microsoft’s new viral campaign, “The Mojave Experiment” launched. The site, designed to help combat the negative perception of Windows Vista, shows videos of real people being shown a brand-new OS code-named “Mojave.” Of course, what they don’t know is that “Mojave” is really Vista. After the 10-minute demo, the computer users, a collection of 120 folks who ran either Mac, Linux, or another version of Windows, are asked for their opinions. Not surprisingly, they liked what they saw.

The point of the “Mojave Experiment,” of course, is to show how negative marketing tactics (cough Apple cough) have affected people’s opinions of Vista…perhaps unfairly so. Vista, especially now after SP1 and numerous driver updates from manufacturers, is just not that bad. Does it have its issues? Yes. And let’s be honest, XP was a darned good OS – maybe even one that didn’t need improving. That made it hard for people to want to upgrade. Vista also embraced change, sometimes seemingly for the sake of change, and that wasn’t always a popular choice. Still, it did not deserve the incredible bashing it took in the tech community. It was far from perfect, mind you, but the hatred expelled towards Vista was not in proportion to its faults.

What’s even more interesting than the Mojave Experiment itself, are the new Microsoft defenders now coming out of the woodworks. Take, for example, this post on Engadget. It’s a somewhat hateful take on the whole “Mojave” endeavor that ended with the question: “What are you trying to say, Microsoft? That people heard really bad things from their friends and co-workers, but a slick 10 minute sales presentation showed them the light?”

Apparently, Engadget commenters on the post didn’t like the post’s negative tone since it was soon updated with an explanation: “We’re hearing you guys loud and clear in comments. We’ll admit, we hate senseless Microsoft / Vista bashing just as much as the next guy, and that’s not what this is about.”

What? Apologies for Microsoft-bashing? I thought that was the tech blogosphere’s favorite pastime?

As far as what I think about the new Microsoft campaign – well, it’s about time. Microsoft should have never let those “Mac guy” ads continue on as long as they did with no response. It got so bad that people actually started to feel sorry for the poor, sad PC guy who was constantly picked on. Yet, in many ways, both the Mac and PC guys were representative of those they used them. Maligned PC users who care about spreadsheets vs. the smug contingent of Apple fanboys. (OK, Mary Jo doesn’t think it’s a direct response to the Apple ads, but I think it’s the beginning of one). 

But no reaction is just of typical of Microsoft – the company has never really gotten a grip on the importance of marketing in forming consumer opinion. Yes, on one hand, we know we’re being marketed to, but on the other, let’s face it, we’re a sucker for a shiny ad and a pretty package. If Microsoft dropped the ball at all, it was not acknowledging the mistakes they made with Vista’s launch by using marketing as a tool to counteract them.

The takeaway from this new campaign, and the $300 million plus one yet to be revealed, is that Microsoft is finally learning their lesson. And yes, there is a small portion of the community that will still rally behind their efforts. Believe it or not, the community as a whole doesn’t hate Vista. We just never loved it. As Tim Anderson says, “there’s not much wrong with the core of Vista, as demonstrated by the generally solid performance of Server 2008, and now by Mojave.”

And when I refer to “the community,” you need to understand that I speak of the people who exist outside this blogosphere, too. This, the poorly named “tech blogosphere,”  is not a “tech” blogosphere at all, actually, but one that is simply the social media blogosphere, the internet startup blogosphere, the web 2.0 blogosphere, and the “whatever’s next” blogosphere. Don’t be fooled into thinking that we’re all that matters when it comes to “tech.” Real tech happens everyday beyond these walls. As far as I.T. goes, yes, I know Vista’s enterprise adoption is low, but I also know there are a myriad of reasons for this, too. But the bottom line there was cost and no compelling reason to upgrade. No compelling reason. Again, we didn’t hate it, we just didn’t love it.