Windows took over the industy... and why?

[yesthattom]

No doubt, because of videos like this.

Around the 7 minute mark the production values drop to, well, warp 9 bad.

Comments

[n5red.livejournal.com]

I thought it was incredibly cheezy by the two minute mark, but it got so much worse at the 7 minute mark. You're an evil person for posting that.

[redsonja.livejournal.com]

Even more interesting to watch with the sound off. Of particular interest is the role played by the first guy to come into her office. Without even having heard what was said, it is clear that he is meant to be either competition or opposition.

They pretty much lost me when the tape recorder started burning. The whole "sex sells" thing was somewhat repugnant, too.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

wow, that's great! I feel bad for all the actors in it....but loved the Cyndi Lauper-esque part.

[cuddlebunni3.livejournal.com]

OMG, that's hysterical. I was so digging the fashion... ahhhhh.... memories

Backstory

[redsonja.livejournal.com]

The fashion matters more than you know. During the opening seconds of the video, only her exaggerated "tie" told me that she wasn't in an Air Force uniform. That and the space shuttle all over the printouts tell you who a primary target audience for this video was.

It worked. In 1990, Zenith lost the Air Force contract to provide the next generation of desktop 386 machines to Unisys. One reason was their predecessors, the Zenith Z-100s, were not fully compatible with software designed to run on PCs. Intel/M$ cut the data bus down to 8 bit from 16 and had designed in other chip differences. Rockefeller did the same thing with the IRT line in the NYC subway. The tunnels were deliberately designed to be smaller, so that his cars could use everyone else's tunnels but not the other way around. As a result he sold a lot more subway cars than anyone else.

The video was made with all of this in mind. It's a significant part of the story - having the military as a customer is mandatory if you want to dominate a technology industry.

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

Wow.

The "it's just like OS/2, but you don't need to wait for your IT department to vet it or even learn of its existence" bit was an interesting selling point.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Plan 9?

[kathdem.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this! What a hoot. Some initial 'net searches lead me to believe that a few of those folks were MS employees. One of them, Adrian King, went on to write "Inside Windows 95." It looks as if it was filmed on campus, even.

John Pendleton's voice is very familiar to me, like he must be a voiceover guy, but I can't find anything about him on the web. Does he sound familiar to you?

[cinema-babe.livejournal.com]

Wow, I had that outfit, um, I had both of those outfits. And the glasses. And I used Windows 386.

Excuse me while I have a flashback.

Ahhhh, that's better.

Seriousy, this was one of the most (unintentionally) amusing things I've seen in a while.

[cos]

I like the poster's description:

Microsoft sent this tape to retailers to explain the benefits of Windows 386. Boring until the 7 minute mark when the production is taken over by crack-smoking monkeys.