ReadWriteWeb

According to numerous reports, Microsoft has decided to cancel its controversial series of ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates after releasing only two ads. When the first ad was released, the reviews were mostly negative, though some commentators, including our own Sarah Perez, thought it was a good effort on behalf of Microsoft to enhance its brand. However, it seems Microsoft didn't think so itself and is now trying to salvage what is left of this campaign.

To us, it was never quite clear what this campaign was supposed to achieve. The first ad, in which Seinfeld and Gates go shoe shopping, was at least slightly funny. The second ad, which had both live with a 'normal' family to get back in touch with reality, was just awkward. Indeed, the whole campaign felt out of touch with reality and completely failed to enhance Microsoft's branding.

Microsoft ran its first commercial with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld on NBC this afternoon, to mixed reviews. Seinfeld will reportedly take home $10 million for his part of the $300 million "Windows Not Walls" ad campaign.

Does that seem like money well spent so far? Below you'll find the commercial and two opposing opinions about it from members of the ReadWriteWeb team.

Microsoft today unveiled video footage of an exercise called the Mojave Experiment, where unwitting Windows users were tricked into watching a Vista demo while told it was something else. The experiment's subjects were all people who had a negative impression of Vista but no personal experience with it. One short demo later almost all of them reported a far more favorable impression of the operating system "Mojave" than they held of Vista.

The videos are reminiscent of the infamous Milgram Experiment, where Stanford researcher Stanley Milgram fooled subjects into believing that a fake situation was actually real. That experiment has been the subject of decades of ethics debates - Microsoft's Mojave was just creepy. Note: Several readers have responded in comments saying that this is not a legitimate comparison to draw. We will take your thoughts into consideration before drawing wild comparisons between tech marketing campaigns and arguably egregious violations of individual rights in the future. :)

Microsoft's failure to close the Yahoo deal, despite all kinds of loud talk and machinations, makes the Beast of Redmond look increasingly weaker. They may still pull it off, but even then the question is why do they need Yahoo so badly? The answer is that their dramatic failure with Vista took away their normal playbook.