Microsoft seeks to smear Google with latest YouTube video

By Francis Bea February 22, 2012

googlighting — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Is Microsoft feeling the heat?

Little has held Microsoft back in its anti-Google campaigns, and in its latest effort, the Redmond company has once again stepped onto Google’s turf, YouTube, to present the sleazier and competitive side of the search giant.

Last summer, Microsoft launched a multi-platform offensive against Google’s Gmail privacy with the eponymously named YouTube video, “Gmail Man.” The video depicts Google caught in the act of snooping around in user’s personal mail for the purpose of “birthing” new targeted advertisement and presents little shame in covering up for its indiscretions.

Coupled with its anti-Gmail video campaign, Microsoft launched a follow-up strike with three full-page advertisements in major newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and USA Today. Boasting Microsoft’s ideal of, “Putting people first,” the statement was presented as an eye-catching opener for the paper advert, only to be topped off with the promotion of competing services: Hotmail, Bing, Microsoft Office 365 and Internet Explorer.

With Google embroiled in privacy battles stemming from bypassing iOS Safari and Internet Explorer’s privacy settings, Microsoft has seen it fit to return once again. Its methods have been opportunistic to say the least, and to its credit, increasingly punctual when thwarting a weakened Google. It’s safe to say that Microsoft has taken it one step further than the Audi TV spots.

In a two-minute-long attack titled, “Googlighting,” a parody of the hit 1985 ABC show, “Moonlighting,” Microsoft hits Google with a two-pronged attack. Piggybacking off of Google’s former recognition as a search platform, the first dig questions whether Google is in over its head by “moonlighting” (also in, performing a second job) in productivity applications. The video makes it apparent that Google, in Microsoft’s mind, isn’t a far cry from a charming, yet sleazy salesman selling an underwhelming product. The second denounces Google’s strategy of using corporate customers as beta testers for Google Apps, which Microsoft evidently feels to be far inferior to its own productivity software.

When compared side by side, Google Docs and Microsoft Word both have issues and advantages over one another. Google Docs offers a streamlined interface, but minimal features. Meanwhile, Word allows extensive document customization, in a clunkier interface. Yet in a corporate setting, the ability to collaborate on a single document in real-time may be advantageous to employees. Microsoft on the other hand, for its Office Professional software, runs at an upwards of $350 per user per computer. Unless corporate customers plan to run a single version of Word for seven years or More, Google Apps is a more cost-effective service at $50 per year per user, and quicker to get up and running.

With an increasing number of companies turning to a more efficient Google Apps, including its mimicries of Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint, you can’t help but realize that Microsoft’s latest video is evidence of the Microsoft’s uneasiness with Google’s foray into productivity applications.

Seeing as how Microsoft’s “Googlighting” video has received more dislikes than likes, let us know what you think of Microsoft’s strategy in the comments below.

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