If this advert — or the previous one — was designed to make me buy Windows Vista it has failed miserably.

What is has done is reinforce the fact that Bill Gates, Microsoft and Jerry Seinfeld are all well past their peak.

In this second advert, Bill asks Jerry, "Why are we doing this again?" and Jerry replies, "Why ... you and I are a little out of it ... You are living in some moon-house hovering over Seattle like some mothership, and I've got so many cars I am stuck in my own traffic. We need to connect with some real people."

Software companies do not need to "connect" with people. They should be making software. Period.

If Microsoft was a good software development company, it would simply supply the world with better, cheaper software. Unfortunately, Microsoft is now a marketing company that does software on the side.

Instead of spending $300 million on these adverts and more than $500 million trying to market Windows Vista, Microsoft should have spent that cash creating a brand new operating system from scratch, which in order to run properly, would not require hardware that has yet to be invented.

Vista's marketing dollars could have been spent helping companies migrate their legacy Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP applications to a new, reliable, secure and stable platform.

Instead, we have two out-of-touch personalities making fools of themselves to billions of relatively poor people in the hope that those people hand over yet more of their hard earned cash.

Alternative view by Alex Serpo, reviews editor at ZDNet.com.au.

Let's not pretend. Bill Gates isn't like everyone else. This is a man who wrote his own operating system in his early twenties. Bill Gates makes Stephen Hawking look like a man with hobbies.

So when Microsoft's most iconic man decided to make television commercials with one of America's original comedians, everyone cried foul when they didn't get more beer ad-style humour. But just because the ad doesn't contain a swimming tongue or a tea party, that doesn't mean it's not funny.

You just have to understand that a man who finds Turing Machines fascinating probably has a strange sense of humour. Bill's humour is subtly ironic. This is the man whose company gives away free Blue Screen of Death screensavers, and makes jokes about the fact that Bill is really still the kid in school nobody wants to be friends with.

So when Jerry Seinfeld finds Bill in a discount shoe store, this is Bill playing on his own stereotypes. He wants you to see him as a penny pinching geek, and wants you to laugh at him for it. You should. It's painfully ironic and subtly funny.

It's popular to bash on Microsoft and Bill knows it. He was once the world's richest man and there is no disputing his genius. He brutally crushed competition to dominate the software market. Now he's inviting you to laugh at his weaknesses. Empathise with him a little. You should, it'll make you feel better.

Who do you agree with, Munir or Alex? How do you like the advert? How do you think it compares to Apple's advertising campaign? Have your say in Talkback below.

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While Steve Jobs takes his wheelbarrow of cash to the bank, the ACCC is preparing 3G data customers for what the industry calls "bill shock", which is what the watchdog says will happen when users who have not chosen an appropriate data plan receive their first bill.

How much does a 3G iPhone really cost?

Click here for a breakdown of Australia's iPhone pricing plans

We know everything about the iPhone 3G and we know how much each of the Aussie telcos will be charging us for one. All that's left to do is sift through the seemingly endless plans to discover the best value iPhone deals.
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The ACCC suspects consumers will face "significant" costs because they may have been "misled" by telcos.

IDC telecoms analyst Mark Novosel gave an example of what might be worrying the ACCC: "Telstra's entry-level $30 plan provides a trivial 5MB of data per month, which can be consumed in less than one minute; downloading a single song, leaving consumers with excess usage charges of $1 per MB".

Suddenly, all that small print about excess usage charges and additional data costs will, probably for the first time, be read and re-read by consumers who got lost in the excitement to become one of Australia's first 3G iPhone owners.

Who can envy that sinking feeling when they open their mobile phone bills and scream, "HOW MUCH?"

"Bill shock" for Optus' customers may come later than the rest of the industry as it is offering free data for the first month. However, for addictive products, isn't the first taste always free?

How much of this is caused by operators deliberately adopting complex pricing structures designed to make it difficult for consumers to make an informed decision? Alternatively, how much of this is due to consumers with more money than sense?

Although I have been very tempted to get an iPhone, I am waiting till the "early adopters" are satisfied and the telcos start selling the device at a sensible price on a sensible plan — something equivalent to Vodafone's dongle pricing or most of 3's mobile phone plans.

One indication that the initial madness is over will be when telcos offer a combined 3G mobile data plan and home broadband allowance, which would mean that, for example, a Telstra/Bigpond customer could respond to a few emails using their mobile on the bus and not worry that the data charge could cost as much as their weekly ticket.

When I asked IDC's Novosel if and when we may see this kind of combo deal, he said "not anytime soon" because although the operators likely have this idea on the drawing board, there are still "enough people willing to pay through the nose to get an iPhone".

Have you bought an iPhone? Are you worried about your data bill? Have you moved your iPhone to the 3 network? How long do you think we will have to wait for realistic data plans?

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• CIOs pass their verdict on the 3G iPhone
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Whitelists, which stop unknown and unwanted applications from executing on corporate networks, work in the opposite way to our current blacklist-based computing model. Under blacklists, any application can run unless it's been nominated to be blocked.

Whitelists provide better protection than blacklists by stopping unknown applications - and therefore malware - by default.

One problem with whitelisting though is that, as with any security measure, it compromises flexibility and functionality in favour of safety. However, with the present state of the IT industry, a little less flexibility will have a positive effect.

I asked James Stewart, chief security officer at Cisco if the whitelisting approach was too inflexible for today's enterprise. He didn't think so and went as far as saying the technology was vital: "I'm not sure we can get to the place of feeling confident in our infrastructure without whitelisting."

AusCERT's general manager Graham Ingram also believes whitelists are the way forward: "I think [whitelists] are a natural progression. Blacklisting only had a limited life and we are getting to the end of that."

We have to face it. Desktop security is broken - it has been ever since computers were no longer confined to large, well-guarded buildings. Back then, there was no way of processing data (good or bad) unless someone fed a computer with punch cards, which is a far cry from the connected Web 2.0 world - and yet we still use the same basic architecture.

If we are serious about fixing security then let's embrace whitelists and move on.

While security experts appear to be in favour of whitelisting, I'm curious to know what ZDNet.com.au readers think of it and when, if at all, you plan implementing the technology. Take part in our reader poll and leave your feedback below.

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• AusCERT 2008: Complete coverage
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At present, Microsoft finds itself in an unenviable position — its customers want to continue buying and using Windows XP, while its stockholders demand it makes those customers upgrade to Vista.

In an attempt to please both camps, Microsoft has created a licensing loophole — it sells its customers Vista but allows them to continue using XP using so called "downgrade rights".

Because of this, HP and Dell both plan to supply PCs loaded with XP well past the June 2008 deadline set for XP's execution. Essentially, they will be selling XP machines with a prepaid upgrade to Vista included — if and when the customer chooses to do so.

All that pre-release bragging about how well Vista was going to be received didn't convince anyone. Microsoft may even have known Vista was going to be a flop — and a loss in the lawsuit alleging it lied about what constituted Vista-capable hardware could prove it.

Microsoft has a history of delaying the death knell of its operating systems. Back in 2004, Windows 98 required constant rebooting, security wasn't even an afterthought and the dreaded blue screen of death was an everyday occurrence and yet, people still refused to swap it for XP and Redmond decided to keep the superannuated OS on life support for a while longer.

It took another 18 months before Microsoft finally killed off Windows 98.

Back to 2008 and XP is stable and relatively secure. This time, it looks like Microsoft is going to have a much bigger fight on its hands getting customers to forget an old OS.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently said that the US$500 million (that's $500,000,000) already spent on marketing Vista wasn't enough and more cash was needed to generate "excitement" around the operating system.

This week another Microsoft executive claimed that people simply have a bad perception of Vista. He said that Vista is brilliant and if only people went out and bought it, they would love it.

All these pronouncements are signs that Microsoft is desperate to try and turn around sales so it does not have to further delay the death of XP.

From speaking to local CIOs, more than a year after its launch and even after the release of SP1, Vista is still far from being a priority.

Over the years, I can't remember how many times Microsoft has claimed it listens to customer feedback and responds.

I think the ears may be a little waxy. Let me sum it up for you Microsoft: even though you are making your customers pay for Vista they are still using XP. That alone should tell you what you need to know.

Extend the life of XP until your customers are ready to upgrade. That day will come. One day.

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• Dell and HP still the life of the XP party
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Every now and again I read a news article that sends so many bells ringing, I feel like Quasimodo. One that recently had this affect was in the New York Times, which explained how New York State had kindly donated hundreds of its old subway carriages to be used as an 'artificial reef'.

These old carriages — of which at least 666 have already been used to create an artificial reef (insert your own puns) — are "basically luxury condominiums for fish," according to the bloke in charge of the artificial reef program, who was quoted in the story.

Sounds interesting.

Unfortunately, these fish mansions contain asbestos in the glue used in their floor panels and walls. However, we are told that this is not a problem because asbestos is only dangerous to humans if airborne. Luckily for us, fish don't have a problem with the stuff — if they did, I am sure they would have hired political lobbyists to fight their cause.

Tucked away at the end of the story, we are informed that some US states have "experimented with other types of artificial reef materials", which include "abandoned automobiles, tanks, refrigerators, shopping carts and washing machines".

For so long we have been searching for ways of recycling our old technology. Why didn't we think of this before? I reckon marine creatures would love old IT equipment too. I hear fish adore sucking on old lithium batteries. The innovative ones actually make decorative jewellery from the precious metals used to make circuit boards.

I'd like to suggest we help out our American friends' quest to attract more fish to their 'underwater deserts' — by volunteering our old IT equipment.

Next time your datacentre needs a refresh, just load all the old hardware onto a huge ship, take it to the Delaware coast and chuck the lot overboard — for the sake of the fish, damn it.

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• Apple, Greenpeace fight over standards
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"We are very, very focused on security and privacy and the obligations we have ... We would need to make sure that we are very comfortable through some form of technical scrutiny of what is inside such a product so that there is nothing unforeseen there," he told ZDNet.com.au in a video interview.

I find it interesting that Gibson trusts software from proprietary vendors who keep their code a secret but distrusts open source vendors, who lay out their code for anyone to see.

If this is the prevailing attitude among CIOs, it seems like the open source movement still has a very long struggle ahead.

The full interview with Gibson will be published today on the ZDNet.com.au CIO Vision Series page.

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This was from the big banana of a company that, for as long as anyone can remember, has created software that is as greedy for PC resources as the Bush administration is for oil.

Ballmer even cited research from UK-based magazine PC Pro, which found that if a company ran 200 Vista-based PCs it would create less greenhouse gas emissions than if that same company used 200 Windows XP PCs. According to the research, this was entirely due to Vista's power management tools and nothing to do with how the PCs would perform while being used.

Cobblers! Windows Vista does not use fewer resources than XP.

For example, US IT services company Softchoice says Vista is the most power-hungry Windows desktop so far. Vista's minimum CPU requirements, according to the company, are 243 percent larger than that of XP.

Implying that Vista uses less power than XP is disingenuous and a sign of desperation.

Earlier this year, Ballmer said that the US$500 million -- yes, that's half a billion dollars -- Microsoft has already spent on marketing Vista wasn't enough and it needed to spend more to generate "consumer excitement".

If Microsoft really wants to excite its customers it should get back to basics and create genuinely innovative software -- instead of spouting increasingly unbelievable marketing claptrap.

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Entourage is basically a Mac-based version of Outlook and could be the application of choice for Apple users that need to collaborate with their Windows counterparts. However, after testing the latest version, Entourage 2008, it seems that compared to the previous version, the improvements are essentially cosmetic.

Ashwin Sridhar, technology manager at CNET Networks Australia -- the parent company of ZDNet.com.au -- manages a network of more than 60 machines in Sydney. A significant proportion of these system are Macs and Ashwin is responsible for making sure that users of both platforms can seamlessly collaborate with each other when it comes to calendaring and e-mail.

Having recently migrated the entire Australian operation to Microsoft Exchange, Ashwin had been looking forward to an Entourage update because users of the previous version were very vocal in their dislike of the older product (especially me).

After upgrading from Entourage 2004, the first thing he noticed was Entourage's new image, which isn't exactly revolutionary but does go some way to making it look more like a native Mac application -- instead of a Microsoft application invading the OS X desktop.

Unfortunately, that was about the only positive comment he had to make.

His biggest gripe was that Entourage 2008 still doesn't support the native Exchange protocol, instead it uses Outlook Web Access (OWA) to provide Exchange connectivity.

"Why Microsoft hasn't included native MAPI support in Entourage is a real mystery. Even Microsoft's own implementation of the OWA is lacking. Entourage 2008 still isn't able sync my To-do list with the Exchange server, which was a major failing in Entourage 2004. Third party applications such as Evolution seem to be able to perform this particular task just fine. The result is a set of tasks on my PDA to-do list won't sync with Entourage," said Ashwin.

The decision to have multiple search boxes was "puzzling", according to Ashwin. One search box is in the main toolbar, and the other, called Quick Filter, is located just above the listing pane for e-mail and contacts. On seeing two search boxes, Ashwin decided to hide the Quick Filter but then found that the search functionality had completely broken down.

"Typing in various combinations of search phrases and parameters failed to bring up either e-mail messages or the desired contact. It was not until a colleague reminded me of the Quick Filter that I was able to search through my e-mails and contacts again.

"Why have two search boxes when one of which doesn't yield any results?" he asked.

Ashwin was using the beta version of Office 2008 and the search malfunction has apparently been fixed in the retail version -- but there are still two search boxes.

Another major failing in Entourage 2004 that has not been addressed in the latest version, according to Ashwin, was that when e-mails are moved from the Exchange mailbox into a local folder -- or another mailbox -- they are not automatically deleted, which adds an unnecessary step.

"Go on, try it," he said. "Other mail clients -- including Evolution and Apple's own e-mail client (Mail) -- handle this task without issue.

"So it's back to moving messages and hitting the delete button for me," said an increasingly frustrated Ashwin.

Entourage also compromises usability for security -- the inability to include hyperlinks in e-mail signatures is a prime example, he said.

"HTML formatted e-mails usually look horrendous in Entourage, as the URL is displayed right next to the link. Moreover, clicking on links doesn't open them in the browser right away -- the application displays a dialog box warning the user that they have 'clicked on a link that might be a fraud'," said Ashwin.

Another complaint -- but a minor one -- is the MyDay feature, which has been touted as a major enhancement. According to Ashwin, Microsoft should have spent its development resources elsewhere.

After playing with Entourage 2008 for over a month and comparing its functionality to that of the previous version, I asked Ashwin if he thought upgrading to the latest Entourage (and therefore Office 2008) was worth the money.

His answer, unsurprisingly, was "no".

"Entourage 2008 is still plagued by the same old issues that made me hate its older version. For now, I'm going back to using Mail as my primary mail client with Entourage running in the background -- just for calendaring purposes.

"Perhaps the next version of Mac Office will fix these issues. I am not holding my breath," he shrugged, while walking back to the server room.

So why would Microsoft do such a bad job of "improving" Entourage 2008? If I was cynical, I would say it was to discourage companies from deploying anything but Windows on their network.

But Microsoft would never do that, would it?

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Last weekend, at the Good Vibrations festival, I found a wallet. It contained a small amount of cash, a few credit cards and a UK driver's licence.

One of the credit cards was from St George, so I called the bank see if they could help me return the wallet to its owner.

When I got through on the emergency credit card hotline the operator told me the card had already been cancelled and so the customer's details had been hidden.

So what was I to do with the card, I asked?

The operator told me that because the card had been cancelled, she could not access any of the cardholder's information.

So what was I supposed to do with the card, I asked again?

The response was to try calling one of the other banks or give it in to the police. The only other cards in the wallet were from a UK bank and I thought it very unlikely the owner would ever be reunited with his wallet if I handed it in to the police, so instead, I turned to Google.

The cardholder had a very common Anglo-Saxon name but luckily for him, his hometown was a small village in Scotland with a far more unusual moniker. So, after a little searching, I found him on the social networking site Bebo.

This is definitely one example of where the lack of privacy created by social networking sites had a positive effect.

Oddly, when I met with the wallet's owner, he admitted he had not cancelled the card, so I assume St George' response was an attempt to stop a random from attempting to clean out the account. Whatever the truth, the wallet is now safely reunited with its relieved owner -- no thanks to St George bank.

It seems nuts that the bank had all his details yet was not in the least bit interested in seeing its customer reunited with their wallet.

I wasn't asking the bank to reveal the cardholders details -- I'm well aware of the security implications of that -- but I was hoping St George would ask me to drop the wallet off or post it to one of its branches so it could safely reunite the wallet with its owner.

Unfortunately, in this case, it seems the bank was using security as a reason for not taking any responsibility in helping one of its customers. I guess there are no profits in returning wallets to their owners.

On its Web site, St George claims the "quality of service we deliver and the positive attitude of our staff, combined with the goodwill and loyalty we receive from customers really does set St George apart ... Excellent customer service is not only about meeting needs, but also consistently exceeding service expectations."

I think in this case, St George failed miserably.

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• Westpac's online failures expose weak points
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While stumbling through some videos, I came across this advert by EDS. It is really very good in so many ways -- but bad in so many more.

It's about EDS figuratively building an aeroplane while it's still in the air. It shows a jumbo jet high in the sky, with tool-wielding engineers strapped onto its fuselage riveting metal plates together while hanging on for dear life.

Inside the airplane, which has more holes in its body than a piercing fanatic, stewardesses are unsuccessfully attempting to serve refreshments and snacks to passengers, who -- because of the high winds bucketing through the plane's holey fuselage -- are sitting uncomfortably, repeatedly hit in the face with the errant food.

The advert finishes with a message: "In a sense, this is what we do. We build your digital business. Even while you're up and running."

I can see what EDS is trying convey but as a CIO, would you really want your business run this way -- with employees being smacked in the face with hot beverages and runaway napkins while they are trying to work? Would you want your staff to be inches away from death every time they go to the photocopier?

However, what really concerned me (and made me laugh) was that at the end of the commercial, EDS employees left the airplane by parachute -- and they were the only people armed with such a luxury.

What about the poor passengers, flying in a half built plane with no means of escape?

Does that mean if something were to go wrong with the airplane (oops, I mean digital business) -- would EDS be there in an emergency to fix up the problems and help the company stay afloat (I mean in the air)? Does EDS have support planes (which we would hope are not half built) to rescue the passengers?

If I didn't know better, I would think that in an emergency, EDS would safely slip away while its customers crash and burn.

Anyone want to tell me different?

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• EDS: Linux is insecure, unscalable
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