A while back, a colleague passed me a link to an article about the math problems in Excel 2007. In and of itself, it seems quite amusing that Microsoft continues its self-incriminating trend of distributing broken software, seemingly not even trying to break the stereotype or the techie world jokes we make at their expense.
Granted, I’m a little late to post this and the response from Microsoft and subsequent fix was released and distributed in December. But the bigger story here is the ad the popped up inline with the article promoting – what else – a competing product to Excel and the rest of the Microsoft Office suite, Google Apps (formerly Google Documents and Spreadsheets).
The picture is worth 1,000 words and whatever the amount that Google paid for it.
In a new digital age where Web-based apps are hurting Microsoft’s desktop stranglehold, give props to Google for pulling off a marketing double-play: a great ad promoting a solid, competing product, and taking advantage of reverse free PR, piggy-backing on their competitor’s widely-publicized misfortune.
Can anyone really stop Google?