In an effort to counter Apple’s now notorious “Mac Guy” commercials, Microsoft have launched an advertising campaign costing them a total of $300 million. And the main pitcher of their counter attack: comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Considering their awkward debut, one must ask: what were they trying to achieve? And is Jerry Seinfeld the right man for the job?

Apple’s not-too-subtle jabs at corporate giant Microsoft in their commercials have cast it as an obsolete, nerdy dinosaur; a relic of the past while the Mac is the young hipster, the way of the future?

The campaign has been effective, with Microsoft slowly but steadily losing ground to Steve Jobs’ rival company. So the Redmond giant have decided to freshen up their image.

But we ask, is a late-middle-aged stand-up comedian whose best-known show ended 10 years ago really the right choice? The debut clip of Microsoft’s new campaign, starring Seinfeld and Bill Gates himself, is telling.

The public’s general reaction was “I don’t get it” as the commercial, while probably trying to cast the “nerdy” characters into a more likeable light, only succeeds in creating an awkward, at times surreal pastiche of events. Further contributing to this is the fact that Seinfeld’s established comedic style is based on finding fault, nitpicking. One would sooner expect him to make fun of a large, lumbering corporation like Microsoft instead of bootli… praising it.

If you ask Canada.com editors, an opinion with which we wholeheartedly agree, “If Microsoft wants to sex up its image, a better place to start is with the corporate name. It's all wrong. "Micro" and "soft" are not normally associated with sex appeal.”