I did something yesterday that I actually haven't done for a couple weeks: check out Microsoft's home page. It's funny... for the past several years I probably didn't go two days without seeing it. Every day I would be browsing MSDN, and sometimes I'd also view the home page. I haven't looked at MSDN for about a month, I guess. I was feeling strange waiting for my browser to bring up the home page, sort of wondering what I've been missing, now that I'm not tied to the mothership anymore.

Any feelings of guilt at having been away so long quickly vanished, when this greeted me:

What in the world is GOING ON over there. This is one of the stupidest ads for a computer product I've seen in quite a while. This is an ad for Microsoft Exchange, so their goal is to convince me that Exchange is a world-class, kick-butt, rock solid product, right?

Is there anything in this ad that makes me think any of those things? Let's see:

• Why do I have to "imagine" a Microsoft product that does what one would expect it to do? Is it unrealistic to think it could really happen?
• Is meeting "my" demands a new concept for Microsoft? Whose demands had this product been trying to meet previously?
• Is this guy supposed to represent the typical Exchange buyer? Or user? Wouldn't it be better to show me that he's getting something accomplished, instead of imagining something with his eyes closed and smiling like a moron?
• What's with the blackboard writing? Did they intend to have it cross out the word "server"?
• Try it free for... 120 days? Why 120 days? Is that supposed to fool me because it sounds longer than "4 months" or "16 weeks"?

I guess what irks me about the Microsoft marketing department lately is they seem to talk down to their customers. I've felt that way as a customer of their development products for a couple of years now, and now I also see it happening with other products too. Imagine all the money they spend producing this kind of crap.

Microsoft: stop marketing your software as if your customers are idiots, and just start building software like you're the best software company in the world - if you can.

Have I missed more evidence of Microsoft's marketing department gone amuck? Leave a comment and link it up.