Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor
Enderle tenuously links Microsoft-Apple struggle with U.S. election
Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, a division of Enderle Global Enterprises, represented by Enderle, Enderle & Enderle, and a block south of Enderle Toyota*, says Apple has made mistakes with its marketing that mirror those of the Republican party in this year's presidential race.
In a meandering article (littered with mild expletives) that very thinly connects the election with Apple and Microsoft, Enderle says a winner for either contest will benefit from its opponent's negative advertising.
"In the U.S. election, the negative campaigning probably has done more to motivate the Democratic base and get moderate Republicans to switch sides than anything the Democrats could have done alone. Apple's campaign has truly pissed off Microsoft, and Windows 7 is that company's way of saying, 'Steve Jobs can kiss my a**,' or more simply, 'enough,'" he wrote.
Enderle continued, "Apple would have been better off to fix its crappy laptop keyboards" than to focus on marketing.
Enderle was famous for predicting an early demise for the iPhone, and is routinely (perhaps inaccurately) identified as an independent analyst when giving his opinion.
[Via MacDailyNews.]
*Joke shamelessly ripped from this episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. (About 2:40)
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Billy K said 11:21AM on 11-03-2008
"In the U.S. election, the negative campaigning probably has done more to motivate the Democratic base and get moderate Republicans to switch sides than anything the Democrats could have done alone"
In typical Enderle fashion, this is just wronger than wrong. It's a new kind of wrong that only Enderle can create.
What an idiot. I can't believe this guy actually draws a paycheck.
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Nick said 11:21AM on 11-03-2008
He come's across as an obnoxious, misinformed child.
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jtsnyc47 said 11:48AM on 11-03-2008
Keep giving him more e-ink and you'll keep getting crap like this. Have we not already established this ass as a m$ hit-whore?
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captainblack said 2:07PM on 11-03-2008
I've been hearing a lot about this lately, how the advertising campaigns of Microsoft and Apple are starting to tie-up. Anyone who wants to understand the implications of this should read what Guy Kawasaki has to say about "enemies" in his book, Selling the Dream.
Microsoft is making a huge mistake by trying to fight with Apple. Apple is essentially less than equal to Microsoft (if you consider market share and not style). That's why the Apple ads work. No one expects OS X and the Mac to outsell Windows and traditional PCs, so for that reason Apple can define victory in it's own terms (which is, simply stated, "we're better than you."). Whereas Microsoft only legitimizes Apple by playing their game. Hasn't Balmer ever read the story of David and Goliath?
What should Microsoft do? When asked about Apple they should just say, "Oh, they're a great company who make great software. Now let me show you what we've been working on"...and then of course, they should actually deliver on that. This is essentially the way Gates always played it, and if it ain't broke, you shouldn't try to fix it.
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John said 12:42PM on 11-03-2008
I like the fact that one of the links he gives you brings you to a video that shows them previewing Microsoft 7. Not only does the guy have a hard time getting "gestures" to work properly but then makes a comment about "it looks like a phone made by a company named after a fruit. But they don't do that on pc's". Guess they have never used gestures on a macbook.
Yes, some features of Vista 7 do look nice. However I would take an O/S that is stable over a fancy one any day.
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Mike Hussein Cohen said 11:57AM on 11-03-2008
Once a douchebag, always a douchebag.
What's wrong with apple's "crappy laptop keyboards"? I'm happy with my new MacBook's keyboard.
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Jeff said 12:06PM on 11-03-2008
ugh. Enderle is such a tool.
...but everyone knows he's just another MS hit whore, so you should really stop linking to him.
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A1 said 12:50PM on 11-03-2008
Well said. The guys a paid MS douche.
Robert Palmer said 12:28PM on 11-03-2008
The last time I tried to avoid linking to obvious linkbait, I got into a whole mess of trouble from commenters telling me that I shouldn't be the one to decide what's linkbait and what's not.
The other alternative would be to post nothing at all, but that "Enderle Toyota" gag was just too good to pass up. There's a reason why it's posted in the "humor" category.
Jeff said 12:41PM on 11-03-2008
that was a nice Daily Show reference... i'll admit that.
:)
Jeff O'Hara said 12:41PM on 11-03-2008
Robert Enderle is a MS schill, he was a schill for the Sco Linux lawsuits, and a schill for apple/microsoft. I can not trust anything that comes out of this guys mouth.
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LD said 12:46PM on 11-03-2008
"Apple's campaign has truly pissed off Microsoft, and Windows 7 is that company's way of saying, 'Steve Jobs can kiss my a**,' or more simply, 'enough,'" he wrote."
So he is saying that without competition we would have been stuck with crap like Vista? It seems he's admitting Vista is crap. And Windows 7 hasn't shipped yet. I can buy Leopard. And when Snow Leopard comes out on time, I can buy that too and I'll guarantee it will be better than Windows 7.
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slabman said 4:35PM on 11-03-2008
I think most consumers would associate Obama with a Mac, and McCain with a Windows PC (or perhaps a telegraph key).
Other than that, I would agree that Windows 7 (scheduled for 2010, so expected in 2012) is Microsoft's vociferous response to today's Mac OS. Microsoft's customers will be gratified to know they need only wait a couple of years to catch up.
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Simon Arch said 1:03PM on 11-03-2008
See, here's the problem. Enderle's an attention whore. So by posting this story you're just encouraging him. He has nothing useful to add to the conversation, he just wants people to pay attention to him. Ignore him and eventually he'll go away.
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Jeff said 1:07PM on 11-03-2008
actually he won't, because people (even relatively legit publications) keep citing him as a source for god-know-what reason. (Laziness most likely.)
Simon Arch said 3:39PM on 11-03-2008
Well, that's what I meant. I meant EVERYONE should ignore him, not just TUAW.
SpyBoyCH said 1:15PM on 11-03-2008
I just finnished reading Enderle's article and I must say: as a former English teacher the best grade this article could receive would be a C+.
One thing that a 'A' paper or even 'B' paper would do is try to earn the readers trust by using specific examples. yes, he may summarize things, but he gives no specific examples. he doesn't explain what interoperability problems are or give a specific example of one. He doesn't explain why moving from Windows to Mac can be "about as ugly as you can get." And he doesn't explain what is wrong with the Macbook Keyborads, he only says that there is something wrong.
Another problem from a writing standpoint is that you never want to beat your reader over the head with your agenda before you have won them over. It's like I would tell students "you can start your paper off telling people that abortion is wring and you will scare half of them away, or you can take a different route and explain that all people have a constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and from there ease into the abortion issue."
Everybody here is correct, he is without a doubt, a MS PR/Marketing whore. But he gives away some of Microsoft's strategy in his little rant. When negative PR comes from a company or political party it can make them look desperate, but when it comes from an "unaffiliated source" it doesn't look half as bad. For example, Microsoft uses Enderle; the Republicans use Swift Boat.
I think we all know what's going on here. Enderle is not only trying to slam Apple with bad PR, but he is trying to draw a connection between the Democrats (projected winners of the 2008 election) and Microsoft, in order to make Microsoft look like the underdog, out-of-the-box, cool, and trendy winners lust like the Dems.
But you all know what he is already.
Peace.
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vassar said 2:10PM on 11-03-2008
Isn't he the only analyst at at the Enderle Group, a division of Enderle Global Enterprises, A COMPANY OF ONE PERSON?
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Kelmon said 2:37AM on 11-05-2008
No, I believe his cat is also on the payroll. I also believe that the cat is a better informed analyst, although that's a bar set so low that it's more of a limbo challenge than anything else.
Jason Painter said 9:15PM on 11-03-2008
I can never summon vehement-enough words to describe this fiend.
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