I’m confused.
I’m confused because, today, I learned that Microsoft is cool again.
In my mind, it has been years — nay, a decade — since that particular adjective has been attached in earnest to that particular company’s name by someone not doing paid marketing work. I’m being serious here. Yesterday, if you had asked me what the last truly cool thing Microsoft did was, I’d have had to dig through my historical memory. Windows 98? The Xbox? Minesweeper?
Now, granted, I live in a small, insular, Cupertino-branded bubble. In the last five-ish years, every desktop, laptop, phone, and tablet I’ve bought — or even considered buying, frankly — has been an Apple product. Most of my friends and colleagues are similarly snobbish. Still, I thought I was squarely in the mainstream with respect to characterizing Microsoft as a company that was focused on price and functionality, and had all but given up on trying for style points. It even seemed to admit as much a few years ago with its post-cool, “I’m not cool enough for a Mac” ad campaign.
And yet, here are photos from the New York launch of Microsoft’s Surface tablets and its Windows 8 operating system yesterday, which appear to show sentient, well-informed humans in a state of excitement about Microsoft’s new products:
When did this happen? Seeing a joyous throng of cosmopolitan techies frothing at the mouth over Microsoft products feels like seeing your 1998 Airwalk shoes on a Fashion Week runway, or hearing Weird Al at an Ibiza rave. It’s even weirder that, per TechCrunch, some of the Microsoft fans were displaying Apple-fanboy-like behavior, such as waiting in line for a voucher that entitled them to a future product.
[N]one of the people who waited in line for so long actually walked out the door with a Surface in their hands. Instead they were directed to pay for their hardware, and were told that they could either come back at midnight to pick up their spoils or have it delivered to their homes or hotel rooms by noon tomorrow.
I know! Luckily, we all have the weekend to process.
