Gates and Seinfeld, chapter two

The Windows Vista-Bill Gates-Jerry Seinfeld saga continues with a 4 1/2-minute video that explains a tiny bit more about what the nascent Microsoft ad campaign is trying to achieve: Bill and Jerry (standing in as anthropomorphized versions of Microsoft... I guess Gates is Gates and Seinfeld is Ballmer) are trying to get in touch with "real people."

In the spot (which I presume is being shown in an abbreviated form on TV; I haven't seen it), Bill and Jerry are living with a prototypically "average" family, complete with disturbed dinners, a rumpus room with wood paneling, and an above-ground pool. (Strangly, Gates kind of looks at home in this environment.) Naturally this leads to all manner of humorous mini-confrontations.

It's a more obviously "funny" ad than the last outing, but again it's not really about computing at all. If anything, it comes across as an extended apology from Microsoft for being out of touch with consumers, and by extension reality. If they can just get synced up with middle America, then maybe they can deliver what users really want.

Will the $300 million being spent on this ad campaign atone for mistakes made in the seven years it took to cobble Vista together? Well, as usual, you'll have to be the judge. Check out the full spot on YouTube.