Partisan Windows/Mac Attack Alert! If you like Windows, move along, I’m ranting again.

An article is out in Information Week about how Microsoft is gearing up to counter Apple’s “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads. Boy, they sure don’t miss a thing at the Borg Flagship; it’s only been two years since those ads started. But considering that it took them more than five years to upgrade XP to the Chrome-Plated Turd™, this is actually a pretty fast response in Microsoft Time™. The thing is, they make it so easy to shoot them down, it’s almost not even fun.

“Almost” being the operative word.

Speaking at a keynote address at Microsoft’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference, [Microsoft’s VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing Brad] Brooks signified that Microsoft was ready to admit mistakes and reposition itself to tell a better story about Windows Vista, to counter attacks by rival Apple and let customers know that Vista is finally stable and ready.

Hm. It’s been only 18 months since Vista was first released, and now it is “finally stable and ready.” Funny, I thought it was best to have the OS stable and ready before it was released, not a year and a half after. Those Mac guys certainly have a lot to learn from the OS Masters in Redmond.

“You thought the sleeping giant was still sleeping, well we woke it up and it’s time to take our message forward,” Brooks said.

So, Apple is the Japanese attacking the U.S./Microsoft? Wow, ballsy.

“We’ve faced these challenges before, and we’re going to solve them again. There’s a conversation going on in the marketplace today and it’s just plain awful. We’ve got to get back on the front foot.”

So, you noticed your PR was awful, did you? Like I said, they don’t miss a thing.

He pointed to selected negative quotes from Windows XP’s first year as evidence that operating system launches can often be rocky.

I’m not an experienced expert in PR, but if you’re going to make a statement defending flaws in your product, wouldn’t it be better to argue that the other company’s product has had the same issues? If I were him, I’d have pointed out that OS X, when first released, was also half-baked and buggy for a while. Of course, it was a completely brand-new OS, which Vista doesn’t have for an excuse, but still, it would have been a better argument than “Oh, our products are always shoddy for the first year or so.” This guy is Microsoft’s VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing? No wonder they’re in the toilet.

In the coming weeks and months, Microsoft will launch a huge advertising campaign that’s been reported to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

I would imagine that more important than the price of the campaign would be the message and the quality. Just like MS, believing that brute force is the only key factor.

Microsoft advertised Vista to small businesses in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today the last two weeks, and plans a much larger wave of ads under the tagline “Free the People.”

Excuse me for a moment. I just snorted an entire 6-inch Subway BLT out my nose.

Brooks gave a taste of what’s coming with a few swipes at Apple and some selected highlights of Windows Vista’s features.

Like the ones they stole from Apple’s OS which was released more than three years ago? And implemented badly? Ooo! If you buy the Premium version, you can use their “Flip 3-D” method of choosing windows, which is a badly-designed rip-off of Apple’s 2005 “Exposé” feature! Make a commercial out of that!

As part of that compatibility message, Microsoft will work to reverse the widely held belief, informed by early troubles upon the operating system’s launch, that Vista isn’t compatible with many applications and devices.

“Belief”?

“Windows Vista is an investment in the long term,” Brooks said. “When you make the investment into Windows Vista, it’s going to pay it forward into the operating system we call Windows 7.”

“Buy our crappy OS now so you will be better prepared for our next version of the OS which we promise will be worth it”? Are they kidding?

Microsoft also intends to talk up Windows Vista’s upgraded security, including features like BitLocker Encryption. According to Microsoft, Windows Vista had fewer than half the security vulnerabilities Windows XP had in its first year.

Oooo! “BitLocker Encryption”! Sexy! And “fewer than half the security vulnerabilities”? That sounds secure. Notice, by the way, that they talk about “vulnerabilities,” which sounds so much better than “100,000 viruses, worms and trojans.” They’d rather talk about “vulnerabilities” despite the relative irrelevance of that yardstick because it’s the only way they can claim any kind of security advantage, however laughable, over the Mac.

Brooks even made a bold claim that Windows Vista was the most secure commercial operating system ever in its first year of release, and said “you don’t hear Apple saying that,” though he didn’t lay out the evidence for that claim.

Maybe you don’t hear Apple saying that because they don’t need to, everybody pretty much knows it already. It’s rather obvious. I’m pretty sure that every Mac OS has been more secure than any Windows release, and not just in it’s first year of release. And by the way, I think Apple has mentioned that kind of thing before.

It appears that Microsoft will also frame Windows as “a kind of language,” as that’s how Brooks referred to it in his keynote. “There are over a billion users using it today,” he said. “It’s bigger than Mandarin Chinese, bigger than English, and like those it connects people.”

Yes, having a virtual monopoly makes it so easy to claim big numbers. But numbers don’t translate into quality, especially when the numbers are shrinking despite having people locked into an OS via prior investments, habit, and inertia. If all MS can argue is “we’ve trapped lots of people into using our product, and they’re finding it difficult to escape,” I’m not sure that’s going to sell extremely well.

Microsoft is finally starting to come around to the fact that it can’t just sit back and let others define it.

Again, the monopolistic, 800-pound-gorilla mindset. MS didn’t have to define itself if people had little choice; the fact that they feel it necessary to do so now shows that MS has finally realized that they are becoming more and more vulnerable.

And at least in that one way, they are very smart.