After the recent success of the previous Microsoft parody videos, Microsoft have made a third video that pokes fun at virtualization software company VMware with a character called “VMlimited Man”. The video features a guy called Tad, working at VMlimited, who attempts to sell clients limited virtualization packages from the past; a number of funny scenarios ensue. Microsoft encourages you to “watch what happens when you try to buy a cloud solution from the wrong company”.
The video has come out on the same day that the VMworld conference has started in Las Vegas, and is an attempt to sway users away from virtualization solutions that are “stuck in the IT past” like VMware are portrayed as being. At the VMlimited website, Microsoft conveniently links you to the Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform that they are pushing as the better solution.
Microsoft seems committed to making funny videos at the expense of other companies, and as Microsoft’s Frank Shaw mentions on the TechNet blog, “you can expect to see us continue to find ways to tell our story… using ads, tweets, video, infographics, and, we hope, more than a dash of humor”. If you haven’t checked out the previous internal parody videos (that leaked to the public), take a look at Gmail Man; the other featuring Microsoft executives car-pooling to work seems to have been removed.