It's called marketing and this is what's neccesary in our economy. No marketing = no sales. Take for example the same reason that Gateway dropped AMD today...have you ever seen an AMD commercial? Do this, ask the average user that at the same price which he would prefer, an Intel or AMD chip and nine times out of ten they'll pick the Intel because they know that the Pentium is where it's at! Ask the same of a geek and they'll pick the AMD because they really know where it's at. The geeks happen to be educated consumers while all the execs know that the only education John Q Public is getting/believing at this point is what they tell them on the TV ads during Friends.
Not that Microsoft needs to really compete like Intel and AMD do for name recognition, MS still needs to get the good word out. Microsoft has a new product, they want to sell it, to sell it they need computer makers, GW is a computer maker that sells XP. Yes, GW might have got some nice kickbacks on this commercial but if you were Ted, and you're faced with a stock that's dropped from $65 down to $6.50 in no time flat, wouldn't you get excited about selling some new PCs with XP on em? Sure you would because without XP, there's even less of a reason for mommy to buy Johnny that new PC for Xmas. Heck if I were Ted I'd be buying commercials with my own money so I could sell more PCs and maybe get those stock options back up to where they might be worth something again.
I love that commercial and I just hope upon hope that the XP thing really does boost the sales of our PC makers. Without sales, there's no development. Without development there's no new toys for us geeks to drool over.
I wonder if we'll ever see Ted talking to a Penguin 3 months before Xmas......Nah!