Geeky Gates joins deadpan Seinfeld to save Windows Vista from Apple onslaught

London, September 6 : Software giant Microsoft has started a bizarre ad campaign featuring its geeky founder Bill Gates and deadpan sitcom star Jerry Seinfeld.

The 160millon-pound campaign is aimed at combating the public's perception that the company's latest PC operating system Windows Vista is hard to use compared with rival products from Apple, such as the Mac, iPhone and iPod.

The advert shows Seinfeld helping Gates pick out a pair of shoes in a discount shoe store.

Microsoft has admitted that the ad has nothing to do with software.

The 90-second clip makes no mention of Microsoft or computers until the end, when it concludes that the future of Microsoft is "moist and chewy".

However, the video has been met with a baffled response from Internet communities.

It has been criticized across the globe, with the influential Silicon Valley blog Valleywag deeming it "nonsensical" with "loopy narrative touches".

Rival blog TechCrunch said that "the tech and geek crowd is a little underwhelmed" by the new campaign, which was a "far cry from the brilliant Microsoft v Mac ads that Apple has run over the years."

The Australian tech website CRN said that it was a "desperate attempt at being hip".

Microsoft has revealed that the advertisement has been designed to provoke a debate.

"These initial ads are the first in a creative campaign to spark a conversation about the Windows brand - a conversation that will evolve as the campaign progresses, but will always be marked by humour and humanity," the Telegraph quoted the company as saying.

The company hopes that the advert will improve the public's perception about its products.

ANI