Spotted in Techmeme:

Remember those awful Microsoft ads with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates?  Well, now you can forget them.  Microsoft flacks are desperately dialing reporters to spin them about “phase two” of the ad campaign

That's from ValleyWag, so there's no telling how reliable it is - but it's being reported elsewhere as well. The ads were awful, and they had nothing to do with Microsoft, Windows, or any MS product (unlike the Apple Mac vs. PC ads).

If they have real sense, they fired the advertising agency as well - they don't need to services of the clowns who dreamed up the stalker-ish Burger King campaign.

Supposedly, they intend to take back the PC label from Apple with their own campaign (including an engineer who's a Hodgeman lookalike). The thing is, they let Apple spend 2+ years creating this narrative - so it's going to be awfully hard to fight it. On the other hand, the start of this campaign sucked so much, that you might think there's nowhere to go but up.

I disagree though - with the "creative minds" at their ad agency, there's really no bottom. They think the Burger King campaign was brilliant; it actually invoked clown and horror movie images for most people I know. Not a winning combination for a food message...