You’ll remember the television special that Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane made with Microsoft to promote Windows 7, which Microsoft killed before it aired. Here are several clips from the show that could have been. Three more follow.
“Microsoft and Fox are joining forces to showcase how the power and simplicity of Windows 7 can enhance the content Fox viewers enjoy most, whether it’s comedy, drama, sports, or reality programming on TV or on the Web.
Microsoft and Fox also plan to put on a 12-week college tour allowing students to try Windows 7 and tying in outdoor-movie nights hosted by the Stewie and Brian characters of ‘Family Guy.’”
It’s not that this is a bad idea, it isn’t. It’s that Microsoft’s marketing has been all over the place during the past 2 years: Jerry and Bill, I’m a PC, Laptop Hunters and now an hour-long, prime time cartoon. It’s symptomatic of the company’s larger problem: They try to be everything to everyone. Enterprise, middle class 50-somethings in the suburbs, small businesses, college kids … not to mention all the hardware manufacturers that run Windows.