Thursday will have seen no Redmond Rumba. There will be no pas de deux, especially not an
iPad de deux. If Microsoft will be dancing, it'll be dancing alone.
Launching a new product is hard. Launching a new type of product -- and, for all
the alleged failure with the Surface RT, the Surface idea was unquestionably thinking different -- is harder than trying to get politicians to think about anyone but themselves.
Which leads me to 14-year-old girls dancing on benches.
They (and some very pretty dancing boys)
were the first spokespeople -- or, rather, jigpeople -- for the Surface.
At the time, I wanted to be my generally charitable self. So I called the ad surface deep.
This was jiggery without pokery. It was a potpourri of "lifestyle" advertising that you've seen before. The cast of "Glee" meets the "Kids From Fame" and they all have a house party. Lemonade optional.
Is this the way you launch what you hope will be a revolution? Or at least your revolution?