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Cupertino fires back after Microsoft’s ‘Apple tax’ ads

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April 16 Today in Apple history April 16, 2009: Apple hits back at Microsoft following an advertisement that criticizes Cupertino for failing to sell decent laptops for less than $1,000.

“A PC is no bargain when it doesn’t do what you want,” Mac PR director Bill Evans tells Bloomberg. “The one thing that both Apple and Microsoft can agree on is that everyone thinks the Mac is cool. With its great designs and advanced software, nothing matches it at any price.”

Apple vs. Microsoft: An ad battle

Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunter” ad campaign, which prompted Apple’s response, followed customers as they went in search of affordable laptops. The ads spotlighted the “Apple tax” — the premium paid by consumers who bought Macs over much more affordable Windows PCs.

As can be seen in the below example, the Microsoft ads did not criticize Apple laptops for any design element or performance shortcoming. Rather, they focused on pricing.

The young woman in this particular ad sets out to find a laptop with a 17-inch screen for less than $1,000. Shocker: She doesn’t find one in an Apple store.

Hitting back at Apple’s ‘I’m a Mac’ ads

Microsoft also commissioned a controversial report from Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates. It compared the prices, and hardware differences, of Apple computers and PCs.

Microsoft’s goal in all this? To counter the negative image of the PC fueled by Apple’s popular “I’m a Mac” ad campaign.

Redmond had reason to worry. After dominating Apple throughout the 1990s, Microsoft was starting to decline in popularity in the 2000s. At the same time, Apple was enjoying a hot streak. This was partially thanks to the “halo effect” of hit products like the iPhone and iPod, which brought in new fans.

In May 2010, Apple finally overtook Microsoft in market value. A little over a year after that, on August 9, 2011, Apple blew past oil giant ExxonMobil to become the world’s most valuable company. But time changes everything — MSFT is valued at over $3 trillion while AAPL is down at about $2.6 trillion.

Still, these days the war between the two tech giants is over, to the point that they cooperate in many ways. There are Apple Music and Apple TV apps for Windows, Windows users can send and receive messages and calls via an iPhone, and much more.

Have you always been an Apple fan, or did you switch over from PC? Let us know your story below.



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Entertainment

Google fires engineer who protested at a company-sponsored Israeli tech conference

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Google has fired a Cloud engineer who interrupted Barak Regev, the managing director of its business in Israel, during a speech at an Israeli tech event in New York, according to CNBC. “I’m a Google software engineer and I refuse to build technology that powers genocide or surveillance!” the engineer was seen and heard shouting in a video captured by freelance journalist Caroline Haskins that went viral online. While being dragged away by security — and amidst jeers from the audience — he continued talking and referenced Project Nimbus. That’s the $1.2 billion contract Google and Amazon had won to supply AI and other advanced technologies to the Israeli military.

Last year, a group of Google employees published an open letter urging the company to cancel Project Nimbus, in addition to calling out the “hate, abuse and retaliation” Arab, Muslim and Palestinian workers are getting within the company. “Project Nimbus puts Palestinian community members in danger! I refuse to build technology that is gonna be used for cloud apartheid,” the engineer said. After he was removed from the venue, Regev told the audience that “[p]art of the privilege of working in a company, which represents democratic values is giving the stage for different opinions.” He ended his speech after a second protester interrupted and accused Google of being complicit in genocide.

The incident took place during the MindTheTech conference in New York. Its theme for the year was apparently “Stand With Israeli Tech,” because investments in Israel slowed down after the October 7 Hamas attacks. Haskins wrote a detailed account of what she witnessed at the event, but she wasn’t able to stay until it wrapped up, because she was also thrown out by security.

The Google engineer who interrupted the event told Haskins that he wanted “other Google Cloud engineers to know that this is what engineering looks like — is standing in solidarity with the communities affected by your work.” He spoke to the journalist anonymously to avoid professional repercussions, but Google clearly found out who he was. A Google spokesperson told CNBC that he was fired for “interfering with an official company-sponsored event.” They also told the news organization that his “behavior is not okay, regardless of the issue” and that the “employee was terminated for violating [Google’s] policies.”

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