Worlds Colliding

I’m a big fan of Pawn Stars. It’s the one “reality show” I can watch (when I’m in a hotel or via the History Channel app on my Nexus 7). So, I was apprehensive about clicking this given I also love Paul Thurrott’s podcast “Windows Weekly” on TWiT and knowing his…um… love for Chromebook since I’ve been listening for over 5 years. Click to read his reaction to the Pawn Stars / Microsoft mashup:

So I was happy to see a great new “Scroogled” ad appear from Microsoft this week featuring the guys from “Pawn Stars.” It’s worth watching.

via Great New Scroogled Ad with the Pawn Stars | Cloud content from Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows.

I use a Windows machine here in the office and love it as a “truck” to do things like Photoshop or intense projects.

However, my go-to device is a little Acer Chromebook that I love. Between the Chromebook and my Nexus 5, I can run my company on the go and “in the cloud” pretty effectively. I sometimes need to get to the office to use this powerful Windows machine (or if I need to play a graphics intensive game), but my computing work is pretty evenly distributed between the Chromebook and this PC.

No, I don’t think a laptop needs Windows and Office to be a “real laptop” as the ad calls out. I know Paul disagrees, but this just reeks of desperation and won’t be received well.

Microsoft should decide what to be and go be it rather than trying to point out what other competitors are and are not. That’s my $50,000 marketing advice to them heading into a very important 2014 for the future of their company. Embrace RT. Push us old “we want desktop!” users harder to the Modern UI interface. Lean forward into the future and make Windows (RT) the kind of polished product that the XBox One is on launch day. Be innovative. Make us smile again.

Oh, and stop making my favorite TV people talk smack about something I love 🙂

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