PUBLICITY STUNTS THE PRESENT TREND WITH MICROSOFT

A publicity blitz intentional to lend a hand for Microsoft to buff up the flecked brand name of its Windows Vista operating system began this week with a head-scratcher of a money making stunt. The advertisement features Jerry Seinfeld bending some new-fangled shoes, Bill Gates fiddling with his shorts and no bring up of Vista. Microsoft articulates the advertisement is predestined to get public talking, and that additional parts of the marketing crusade will in point of fact get into what its software is able to do. But the marketing, which will outlay hundreds of millions of dollars in excess of quite a few years, is in actuality just “air cover,” according to Bill Veghte, the Microsoft administrative who is accountable for supporting Windows, in all probability the major money-spinning franchise in history.

For more than a year, Mr. Veghte and his squad have been mounting ways to convert the familiarity of buying and using private computers that run Microsoft software. Corps of Microsoft engineers, for instance, has been transmitted to pinch hardware and software to formulate Vista PCs quicker and less crash-prone. Microsoft has jumped into the globe of PC retailers in a way it on no account has before, offering training and recommendation — and even reimbursing to put hundreds of “Windows gurus” in stores.