I have to admit that us lowly Mac users have been catching grief for years and years over all the Microsoft bashing we do. Anytime we say something bad about Windows or Office or PCs in general, there's a quick and harsh demand for specifics - what exactly does the Mac have on a PC. But for me, the hatred for all things Redmond doesn't really come from some specific OS flaw, or the way the Mac OS does something better than Windows. For me, its the sum of all the ridiculous and idiotic things that Microsoft has done over the years for the sake of well, I can't quite figure that out.
Which leads me to today's installment...
So I'm doing a little research today on Microsoft's Bing search engine. I was skeptical at first, but have heard and seen some really remarkable things lately. Case in point is this article - brought to my attention by our developer Richard York.
What they are attempting to do here is really quite remarkable for Microsoft... Innovate.
Oh, you could argue that once again, Microsoft is just adding to the long list of others peoples ideas and trying to capitalize on it.
Anyway, the list goes on. But now we have Microsoft following Google's very successful Maps application and actually trying to take it somewhere new. I was impressed. I was equally impressed today to find out that Bing is now #3 in the search engine rankings with over 11% market share. (Google 65%, Yahoo 17%).
So as I was working today on managing the hundreds of Search Engine Marketing ads for our client Tire Barn, I thought to myself - I better recommend that we move some of their advertising budget over to Bing - after all they're not that far behind Yahoo. So I do a little research and come up to the page where you can sign up for Microsoft's Ad Center for more info, and I click the Sign Up Now button, and I get this message...
The current browser is not supported. To see a list of supported browsers, see About System Requirements.
OK, fine. You're so pissy with Apple that you made it so your Ad Center Sign Up doesn't work in Safari. I get it. Pardon me for using an Apple specific browser. By the way, it's not real hard to code a page to work in Safari - you should try it sometime. Oh I get that you've probably written some sort of Active X control to make using whatever you have easier, but all I was trying to do was sign up for an account and get more information. But wait, it gets better. So I check out the System Requirements page and behold, you cannot sign up to advertise on Bing if you are using a Mac. Really.
Yes, right in the middle it says -
Just brilliant.
