Microsoft’s new ad called Shoe Circus featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates is making lot of buzz on the internet and one thing you commonly hear from everyone is “That ad does not make sense”. It is a pity though that such a smart ad is not understood by people or they are just too narrow minded with their hatred for Microsoft to understand it. I personally find the ad funny and does well what it was meant to do.

Let me explain the ad better here.

Scene 1: It starts off with a scene where Jerry Seinfeld is shocked to see Bill Gates (one of the World’s richest man) buying shoes at a discount store and realizes Bill Gates is having problems with buying shoes which does not fit well and shopkeeper is convincing him that it would stretch and get better.

Bill Gates is shown as just a normal guy who buys shoes at a discount store just like other normal people would. It shows one of the World’s richest man buying shoes which other normal people can afford. This is telling Apple in the face that their prices are high and only privileged few can afford to buy Mac and PC is affordable to almost everyone.
Also it clearly shows since Bill Gates is having problems with shoes which means “One size does not fit all” just like everyone’s computing needs are different and different people need different computers. Another jab at Mac for not giving users enough choice on what they need in terms of hardware.

Scene 2: This scene starts off with Jerry Seinfeld helping Bill Gates choose the right shoes and trying to warm up the shoes so that it would fit him well. Finally after trying many, they choose a shoes which fits perfectly well and also Spanish people outside the shop know what shoes it is and have the same view of the shoes as Jerry Seinfeld has (they run very tight).

This is how we have always bought PC’s, we just don’t go to a shop and say ‘Give me that’.
We check out many manufacturers selling PC’s like DELL, HP, Sony, Toshiba etc and then choose the hardware which best suits our needs. We do research, ask our friends and family and choose the ones that really suits us and our computing needs. Like those Spanish people outside the shop, everyone knows what PC is because they have all used it irrespective of which country they are from or the language they speak.

Scene 3: Checkout, Bill Gates has chosen the right shoes and is about to pay for the shoes. It is funny, there is a mugshot of Young Bill Gates on the Shoe Circus Card. Seinfeld and Gates walk out of the store talking about Microsoft’s future and how delicious their future products will be. Watch out for Bill Gates signal to Seinfeld’s question.

This scene is just fun with both Seinfeld and Gates talking about the future of Microsoft and where it is heading. We clearly know, they are onto something delicious.

I am clearly happy with this ad mainly because Microsoft did not stoop down to Apple’s level by making it personal instead they gave it back in metaphors. I am sure the follow-up of this ad will be even better than this ad. In simple terms, the ad says “One size does not fit all”, so try many before you find the best fit. It is very true with respect to buying computers. This is what i have understood from the ad. If you have understood the ad better, I would like to know your view too.

But to my shock not a single one had followed their dreams including me. They were all either Software Engineers, Insurance Agents, Marketing Executive, Tech Support or some one trying to pursue Higher Education Abroad but what I couldn’t find was a Pilot or an Astronaut or Sports and Movie stars. I said to myself, just to make myself happy that times had changed, World had moved on in a decade. But wait…NASA never stopped hiring astronauts, countries didn’t stop using planes or going to War or people didn’t stop watching Movies and Sports. So what happened to our dreams which we cherished, which we wanted to be fulfilled. Maybe we all let go of our dreams just to take a safer path which was easier than following our dreams. Then I asked myself what stopped me from following my dreams the only answer I got was I felt safe with the crowd just like how sheep’s feel safe with the herd and they always follow the shepherd without exploring anything new or making their existence worthwhile. Maybe we all are a bunch of sheep’s trying to follow the shepherd, who we know at the end is going to trade us to the butcher for a reasonable amount. When we know we will be sold later to the butcher by the shepherd why do we still follow him, it is our own mindset which says it is better to be in a group and be a follower than to be the leader who is not afraid of risk and adventures. Well as I see, we all have potential to do something great, it is just that we can’t overcome the fear of losing and hence we never win. We were not born in this World to get educated for 25-30 years of our life and then work for a Corporation with 80,000 strong workforces where “we are the 79,990th most important employee in the Corporation”. “We are better than that!”

Instead of being in the rat-race, we should all stop for a second and think where we are going. Is it really worth sacrificing the dreams we had for building someone else’s dreams (when we work for Microsoft, we are helping Bill Gates build his dream of “Windows on every desktop”, When we work for facebook, we are helping build Zuckerberg’s dream of connecting the world’s population online). We only have a life and it is very short. Life is meant to lived, take risks, don’t be afraid of adventures, and don’t be afraid to FAIL. Not everyone is lucky enough to FAIL. If you have failed, that means you have tried and trying is very important. If you don’t try, you can’t win.

This is an excerpt from Steve Jobs Stanford Speech which I love “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

I want to end this article with a beautiful quote “Everybody’s Unique in this World, Only if we live up that Uniqueness”.

Monopolies are bad for users, mainly because there is very less room for innovation and corporations who are monopolistic tend to exploit users. Google is a publicly traded company and it has shareholders to satisfy every quarter, No matter what their motto is be it “Don’t be evil” which Sergey Brin coined or the parody of it “Do less evil” which Bill Gates coined in reference to Google self-censoring its search to enter Chinese Market. Google has to show profits every quarter to keep up its market value. With the way things are going in Search Market, there is no room for any start up to compete with Google because they are too big and if Google sees a threat from the start up, they buy it and let it rot in their stables. Here is the list of the companies Google bought.

Haven’t we all seen how monopolies destroy the market and stagnate innovation. It is currently happening in Operating System Market, when was the last time we saw something amazing on our desktops and laptops with the exception of Mac OS X. Wouldn’t it be great if Microsoft had some real competition in Operating System’s where it would have pushed them to innovate rather than churn out under tested and over funded Operating Systems.

The other reason i want Microsoft to buy Yahoo is because when Google has competition, it might have better privacy policies in place than what it has now. Privacy International goes on record saying Google has been placed at the bottom of its rating for its privacy policies. Even Microsoft has better rating than Google when it comes to privacy. You can read more about it here. Is it not scary when a monopoly like Google holds the users personal data for whatever reasons. Maybe they are not exploiting the users now, but what if in the future they do when they don’t have any competition and we users don’t have any other alternative to go to.

So when Microsoft buys Yahoo, fields would get more even for a fight in the search and online advertising market which only helps the users. Believe me, there would be more innovation in the Search now then we have seen in past 3 or 4 years. Competition is Good for the market, and the only company in the World which has a chance of even competing with Google is Microsoft.