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SCMP Reporter

When it rolled out the new iMac, Apple launched one of the most talked-about marketing campaigns in years.

Judging by the company's just-announced sales figures, the Switch campaign may have got everybody talking, but it didn't sell many Macs.

Some blame must go to Ellen 'It's kind of . . . a bummer' Feiss and her term paper - Ellen is at www.apple.com/switch/ads/ellenfeiss.html if you have not seen her yet.

Apple has now taken the campaign to Japan. But no doped-out straggly students here. There's the Unix geek, the mother and Momomo Kikuchi, whose giggling and pouting are bound to win her a minor following.

According to Apple insiders, the campaign may be on its way to Hong Kong by the New Year. Some Apple observers say Apple rarely engages in big-bucks marketing campaigns in Hong Kong, and considering the recent sales figures, now would be an unlikely time to start.

We have another theory: they just can't find anyone in Hong Kong who has switched. Apple, not surprisingly, will not tell us.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has been embarrassed into dumping its own Switch campaign, launched in retaliation to prove that some people also make the leap from Mac Nirvana.

Microsoft quietly canned the campaign after running the first ad, featuring an anonymous woman who compared her first experience with Windows XP with driving a Lexus.

The reason? The amateur sleuths at Slashdot noticed the accompanying picture was a stock photo. Following that and a few other clues an Associated Press reporter managed to work out the true author of the piece; a public relations consultant working for Microsoft.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer was clearly not happy to have been caught with a fake on his hands.

'I got a piece of mail that was vague that the assertion is some marketing person did something that was not entirely straightforward,' Mr Ballmer said to The Age. 'If that's right, I will . . . castigate the offender.'

Although he wouldn't be specific, he told the newspaper it may be necessary to 'weed out' employees who did not live up to Microsoft's code of behaviour.

The United States' oddly named Federal Trade Commissioner Orson Swindle recently launched its new Internet safety and security initiative.

The plan to keep US citizens safe from cyber thieves, terrorists and the like will be headed by Mr Swindle and his friend Dewie the Turtle - at www.ftc.gov/infosecurity.

'Just as Smokey Bear helps prevent forest fires . . . Dewie the Turtle will remind consumers to stay safe online and develop a culture of security, the FTC press release said.

Maybe Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology Henry Tang Ying-yen needs a cartoon pal to brush up his image.

We know profit margins are tight these days, but surely IBM can afford to be a little more generous with its incentives? US customers who spend US$15,000 or more on IBM TotalStorage Solutions can qualify for a free Palm m515 PDA. But hurry, the offer only lasts a month.

Although most of Hong Kong's overhyped and underfunded dotcoms have long since folded, business seems to be as good as ever for HKdotCom head Maren Leizaola.

Mr Leizaola, who runs a popular hardware liquidations mailing list, will this week open his doors to the buying public. Now known as Maren-Mart, the first gear to pile up on the outlet's shelves are more than a dozen Sun Sparc 20s going for just HK$278 each. That's less than the price of a cheap hub. He tells us there is a free Evacu8 Smoke Hood for the first 10 buyers.

Looks like this tech slump may be with us for some time.



SAR may see Apple's Switch campaign in New Year