Ah the Sugarbabes
The original 'Trigger's broom' of pop groups.
Microsoft enlists faceless girl band as face of Windows 7
The Sugababes may be clumsily plodding along without any original members left in their line-up, but that hasn't stopped Microsoft from enlisting Heidi, Amelle and Jade (who they?) to big up Windows 7. As usual Microsoft has completely misjudged its audience with the company's latest marketing campaign. It's already been …
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Sir Sugar
He really looks like a tit in that photo in your story.
Sugababes should be seen and not heard.
Microsoft really cannot do marketing at all can they.
I'm a PC, and I'm the offensive stereotype of your choice
We've got the office bore, ambling round and round the gym droning, while everyone tries to ignore him.
We've got the shrill, gesticulating mother, pathetically failing to juggle work and family as the kids run round her screaming.
We've got the posh, selfish student, shouting in the library, thinking she's really cool and clever.
What exactly do your marketing people do all day, Microsoft? Try sending them out to meet some real people, instead of letting them sit around all day snorting coke and playing with their ponytails.
STOP TRYING TO BE TRENDY. YOU HAVEN'T GOT A CLUE. There's more chance of Ballmer giving birth, even though he hasn't got a womb.
Oddities in form
Had to go and look at the website,. On the form where you have to fill in your date of birth, they've decided you can be anywhere from 2 - 109 years old!!
BTW, anyone want to come to my Ubuntu 10.04 release party with special guests the Sugababes?
Bah
Not to mention the CONSTANT mention of Windows 7 on Capital FM and their "Jingle Bell Ball". Yes, we get it, they are sponsoring it and you are required to shoe-horn it into every mention of the damn gig, but for Pete's sake... I bet they don't even have it *installed* in the Capital building, and if they do it's only for show / because it's subsidised.
The harder you push a product onto your customers, the further back they are pushed.
Sugababes...
Once they were great, but gradually all the original members departed, until there was nothing left but a franchise, which the management carried on trying to milk before it died an embarrassing death.
Kind of appropriate for Microsoft, isn't it?
i am not sure whats worse
Shug-A-Babes 'bigging' up windoze 7
or Ant and Dec flogging nintendonts p1ss - sorry the Wii
I think the choice is apt.
Insofar that I can judge, which isn't very far because the very first few times I heard these lovely ladies sing it physically made me queasy. I appear to have absolute hearing and they don't appear to be very musical at all. Consequently I hadn't noticed any changes in lineup what so ever. As a computing professional I am in the happy position that I do not have to work with redmondware, in fact can safely disclaim all knowledge of redmond's produce, and hence I haven't really taken notice of whether there was any improvement in their products lately either. The previous decades of experience had already taught me that in the areas I care about none was to be expected.
Paris because, well, perhaps she can sing just as well as these lovely and talented ladies.
disapointed
I was expecting actual faceless girls maby because of some sort of photoshop error
still what sort of drugs are the ms marcketing pepol on?
Watch it!
If you're going to start insulting Heidi, then you and me are going to fall out!!
No idea who the other two are these days so feel free to have a go at them.
Give me the money M$
I got some advertising for you "Buy Windoze 7, its better than Vista", theres the best advertising you can do right there.
Oh I get it.
Alan Sugar... Sugababes....
Paris because I'm sure she could come up with better marketing ploys and puns.
Bring back KerryK
Lets have the slightly older and more worldly sugarbabes - or sugarmilfs, if you will.
As for Redmond, its just like a fat bald middle-aged businessman in a dark blue suit trying to get down with the kids. Hilarious really.
Sigh...
KerryK was Atomic Kitten...
Anon because I don't want to admit knowing that...
At least they're not falling foul of the trade descriptions act!
Apple binned their hardware to make them more attractive, it's only right that the Sugar'babes' were able to do the same thing.
If only MS could follow their leads.
New forum style comments voting scheme is pants
"Upvote" is a silly word but nowhere near as silly as taking the "voter" to a separate page.
@Unprofessional Type
Yep, I'm getting sick of using "Back" every time I vote on a post.
I've also noticed that some stories still say "be first to post a comment", but when you click on it, you see there are loads of them.
What he said.
I mean, even Sickipedia doesn't need to do that.
@New forum style comments voting scheme is pants
Very true.
Having to hit the "Back" button is just inelegant.
Also there seems to be no option to "view all comments on one page".
I still
'Up voted' though and theres this web site i frequent that gives good IT advice and tips (especially the commenters there), they give good advice about security for web sites, web casts on IT support and such and could probably help with your rubbish voting buttons.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/
take a look.
Yes, the comment count is broken..
..but clicking on 'be the first to comment' when you had the page open for a while used to take you to a page as if you were the first to comment on a story when in fact if you refreshed before clicking to comment you see that some have indeed been submitted - I considered that broken so it does work better now.
However Now that we have the 'Report' button for posts is there really a need for a delay in publishing the comments? i.e. Now it's called a forum could it not behave like a forum?
The bonus to being reactionary as oppossed to prevetative with inappropriate posts is that it would surely give the Ms Bee more time for her excellent and witty articles and comment replies..
I'm lazy
I rated one comment, got taken to a seperate page and just haven't bothered any more. Every other site just registers the vote, rather than taking you to a seperate page.
Re: @Unprofessional Type
There are some odd design decisions here (IMHO) :(
Firstly, the default width of my history sidebar means I can't tell from the labels which is a comments page and which is an article. This wouldn't be so bad but the former now leads to a 404 page (IIRC it was just the comment submit pages that did this before, which is understandable). Given the similarity between URLs for both it would be simple to have a "back to article" at least, no? This is going to be annoying when the browser crashes (it's IE and I'm at work so there's nothing I can do about it. In fact -grr- it's just done that and I'm typing this *again*. Dammit).
I agree that the "<n> comments" would be better as a choice of comments pages (@GP) if there are going to be several (ahh, is *that* what happened?!!). This would be useful when deciding whether to read comments from the first or just peek at the latest later on (etc). This would, of course, still suffer from moderator approvals between page-load and link-click making the tally wrong (@finbarr above), but I (for one) can live with that.
Lastly, I don't seem to be able to cut and paste - which is going to make quoting a royal PITA.
I would take a look at your suggested link
But I can no longer copy the link off the page, I mean OK disable links in posts, fair enough but please let me copy text off the page at least!
Fail for El Reg, not the original post
Well Microsoft
I invented Windows 7 and you still haven't got it right.
do you think
If i suggest Hell as a location (no not hull) I will win?
Typical MS lack of creativity
they could at the very least have done an S Club 7 reunion, which would bear at least a slight resemblance to the product they're trying to promote.
If anyone wants me, I'll be in the lab working on my 8-piece kiddy-pop group ready for the next issuing from Redmond
You're fired
When I saw Alan Sugar's picture I had the spooky feeling he was yelling at me "Windows 7 was your idea, you're fired!".
IT WASN'T HONESTLY!!!!!!!!
Those adverts.
I wonder if the reason they're using actors and z-list celebs is that when they went round at Redmond and said "OK, whose idea was this? We need to make an advert.", everyone shuffled their feet and looked pointedly the other way?
I'm an Apple...
...and Windows 7 was my idea...
You could just as easily say 'I'm an idiot'... It all fits. It has to be the most pathetic ad campaign yet...
and as for the Sugababes...Aspartame babes....would be closer seeing as NONE of the original members are in it, they are just a poor substitute for the real thing.
Siobhán Donaghy
'Revolution in Me' and 'Ghosts' were easily two of the best albums of the last few years. Has become incredibly accomplished since she left and I think the best is yet to come.
No original members.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with having a band with none of the original members left. It is a bit like Trigger's Broom, but both Dr. Feelgood and Nepalm Death continued to tour long after all the original members had left or, in one case, died.
And 'Overload' was ace.
Matt D
(Reg Sub-Ed)
LOP
Not to mention the london philharmonic orchestra, I barelly recognise any of the original members - its a disgrace!
Akshooli ...
The marketing stuff makes good sense.
Who designed W7?
You did! You did!
Who chose the goil band?
You did! You did!
If anything goes wrong who is to blame?
You did! Stew-Pid!
So, you see, it really is very good marketing indeed.
What's more most people probably felt it was their idea before they met the product proper.
That is very, very neat and really quite subtle?
Windows 7 was not my idea
The only "idea" I had for Windows 7 was that they should fix the sodding image viewer. XP's viewer is great - it plays animated GIFs and you can zoom in on a picture and get a nice, interpolated view (handy for enlarging low res pr0n).
Vista broke it badly when they removed those two key features, and despite all of my feedback, they're still missing from Windows 7. :(
And to add insult to injury, XP's "Picture and Fax Viewer" is so deeply embedded in the OS that I can't get it to run under 7. :(
Ahhh Glsato 2003...
....Sugarbabes, possibly the most dull act ever to perform there (well maybe Oasis could count in that), thank god they were followed by the Asian Dub Foundation to revive me from my coma.
suggest locations for the girl band to perform in.
A Blender.
Please!
Hardly `babes`....
... any more. Look more like a set of bow-wow-wows on that poster. Time to give it up I think.
Anyone else shocked by this article?
When I saw the headline "Microsoft enlists faceless girl band as face of Windows " and the by line "Leather-clad Sugababes shove OS through revolving door" I clicked the link expecting to see said girls prancing around waving the odd copy of Windows 7 in our face. In all, not a bad proposition.
What I got was a frankly scary photo of Alan Sugar.
Shocked? You could say that..
Was XP's idea
Is it me, or are most of the Windows 7 features that "were my idea" there already in Windows XP? Or even in NT? Such as only letting certain users (kids) log on at certain times. Or... um... using a wireless network or Bluetooth peripherals. Well, okay, maybe it took a service pack or two. And maybe the Windows 7 version is easier.
Windows image viewer... surely there are free third party products that do a good job?
Could be worse
They could hire two popular actors to represent a PC and a Mac and then slag off the Mac with innaccurate information.
@AC, 11:28
Ballmer giving birth: A frankly terrifying prospect.
"Well 'e can't 'ave babies, 'e 'asn't got a womb! Wheres the foetus gonna gestate, you gonna keep it inna box?!?"
Thats because he doesnt need a womb, he just reproduces asexually, creating hordes of MiniBallmers, all who have tiny fits of chair-throwing rage, and will eventually take over the world!
*Evil Laugh*
I hate the Apple marketing department
Who's the bigger fool? Apple for starting the 'I'm a Mac' campaign or Microsoft for copying it?
Anyway. The ad that really annoys me most is the one with the student in the library saying how she wanted to run loads of apps at once without the computer crashing. It may be that 7 has some new tricks to stop drivers taking down the whole system (or were they in Vista?), but XP and 2000 hardly ever crashed on me, and that was even when I abused them by running my own crazy software.
But enough of all this. Windows 7, as a descendant of Windows NT, was Dave Cutler's idea, so there.
@AC 11:35
"[...] the very first few times I heard these lovely ladies sing it physically made me queasy. I appear to have absolute hearing and they don't appear to be very musical at all."
I'm not sure how musical _you_ are if you claim to have "absolute hearing"! Do you mean "perfect pitch"?
Lost in translation
Er, yes. Untrained and funkily translated. It still means I get physically ill when exposed to off-key "music". Haven't listened to radio for years for that very reason.
Pictures please.
And don't diss the Sugababes, I don't care for their music but Heidi would definitely get it.
Paris as there aren't any other icons of females to choose from.
Sure it's Windows
And I'm sure as hell not taking the blame for it.
Alan Sugar's caption
"Do you think this finger smells funny?"
sugababes win 7 site
http://www.sugababeslovewindows7.com/index.html
Server: Not Windows, Apache 2.2.3 (CentOS)
I'm a PC and I invented Windows 7!
'Course I couldn't use it to run my promo websites... I have to run them on CentOS.
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