When it comes to point and counter-point commercials on TV these days, forget what the politicians are doing or the campaigns for the various propositions. The real creative stuff is about which computer system is better, Apple or Microsoft. Well, at least Apple’s stuff is creative, anyway.

It’s not that the supposedly cool-looking casual guy that’s supposed to be the Mac computer does much to persuade me to his side of the argument. For me, it’s John Hodgman’s personification of a non-Apple PC. I sure do wish somebody at Microsoft would be paying attention to what he’s saying.

Has anyone had a positive experience switching to Windows Vista? Yes, Windows did a commercial with a few people sampling it when they thought they were trying something else, and they raved about it. But I could also round up a handful of people to try broccoli-brussel sprouts-flavored ice cream and get a few to give testimonials, too.

As part of a changeover earlier this year, we at Inside Tucson Business got new PCs loaded with Vista and its 2007 versions of software, including Word and Excel. I figure the new and improved versions of everything have added at least an hour a week in time wasted.

Microsoft can put on all the TV commercials it wants about how well it thinks its new programs work, but I use it every day and it’s not getting any better.

It’s not so much that it’s necessarily any worse than XP or any of the previous versions. But it doesn’t work any better either. They’re just changes. Earlier versions of Microsoft products weren’t necessarily intuitive for users but they were easier than learning the old DOS commands. Now that we users know how to use the Windows commands, Microsoft somehow felt they needed to move commands around. Sort of a shell game.

In Word, for example, I still haven’t figured out where they moved the "undo" command so I’m back to control "z" for that.

In the face of the complaints over Vista, what does Microsoft do? They run some TV commercials. Reportedly they spent $300 million for a couple of commercials featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld that went nowhere.

Then Microsoft came up with an impactful, if not very creative, commercial in which a John Hodgman look-alike says, "I’m a PC and I’ve become a stereotype." It then shows all kinds of people who are PC users. (I won’t even get into the fact that Microsoft apparently doesn’t know a Mac is a PC, too.)

Apple’s rebuttal comes in the form of two new commercials. In one, Hodgman’s PC is "budgeting" stacks of money, putting most of it toward advertising and a little toward fixing Vista. When the Mac character asks "Do you think that little amount will fix Vista?," Hodgman’s character says "I guess you’re right, we’ll just put it all toward advertising." The second commercial makes "Vista" into a word Microsoft wants to ignore by bleeping it out with a buzzer.

Now, the ball is in Microsoft’s court. Though I suppose, just like politics, we’ll get another attack ad and the people who could do something about it, won’t.

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