Pass a test, get a Windows 7 Mobile phone

In a bold move by Microsoft, the software and hardware giant has embarked upon a radically new form of marketing:  customers must pass tests in order to buy their products.  It will begin with the unveiling of Windows Mobile 7, the much anticipated successor to the rather hebetudinous Windows Mobile 6 and 6.5.

“I never thought I’d say this, but Apple has the right idea,”  a high-ranking Microsoft executive said earlier today.  “They locked down their stuff so tightly that they have complete control of what the consumer not only sees but experiences.  Apple is actually shaping consciousness.  Well, we want a part of that.”

There’s no question that Apple Computers has the right idea, and the numbers prove it.  of those Americans who own upper-market cell phones, 85% own the iPhone.  That’s a huge market share, and, indeed, it’s no wonder that Microsoft wants part of that.

But they have a much more sophisticated plan.  The first phase is called, prosaically enough, “The Dumb-Down Phase.”  Microsoft’s WinMo7 will no longer support applications running in the background, something at which Apple’s iPhone already succeeds quite well.  Compared to the current version of WinMo, the iPhone is, indeed, quite dumb, which Microsoft has now adopted as its own baseline.  The Dumb-Down Phase will include far greater restrictions for third-party developers, another area where Apple’s iPhone has dominated the market.

“Yeah, we’ve had way too many hands on our stuff,”  the Microsoft executive said.

In fact, we’re a little ashamed of ourselves.  Look at Apple.  There again, they’ve got us beat.  They’re totally…angelic.  Apple never allowed the just anyone to develop their products.  In order to develop for them, you have to be properly initiated.  They don’t want these rogue developers in their basements writing lascivious code that will insult the machines they run on.  They have to be…what?…pure, I guess is the word I’d use.

The second and final phase is something that has even Apple more than a little nervous.  Shipments of the new WinMo7 phones to retailers will include a particular number of tablet notebook computers which will be locked on one particular program:  The Microsoft Values.  TMV is a test which Microsoft has paid huge money to develop.  Essentially, a prospective WinMo7 customer will first have to sit for and pass this test before he or she will be allowed to purchase the new equipment.

“We’re just taking Apple’s ideology to the next level,  you know?”

The test will measure the three major domains of the human condition:  intelligence, philosophical, and emotional.  The test will seek to find disparities between the prospective customer’s intelligence and, from both the philosophical and emotional domains, the degree to which he or she can be “retuned to the TMV, for the good of the product, for the good of the country, for the good of humanity.”

The Microsoft executive went on to say,

Look, we don’t want people who rely too heavily on their intelligence.  That’s not only bad for us but bad for society.  We live in a give-and-take world, and, if you look at it right, virtually all of the most intelligent people throughout history weren’t team players.  Well, we don’t want that.  We can’t have that.  Look at where we are today.  It’s all because people favor their own, personal brand of intelligence.  Well, we want to level the playing field.  What could be better than that, really, when stop and think about it?  Apple has the right idea – no question about it – but, well, let’s face it:  they’re no Microsoft.  No, we’ve got to clamp down and root out the undesirables and the tinkerers.  I mean, just think about it for a sec:  would you want your son or daughter down in some tinkerer’s basement while he or she (male or female, mind you) is developing God-knows-what kind of software to run on our WinMo platform?  Or someone who relies too heavily on his or her (male, female, it doesn’t matter) intellect have our stuff in their hands?  That’s the complete and utter antithesis of our TMV’s.  And we want only TMV-minded people using our products.  The rest of the deviants can go get themselves a PalmPre or some other hellacious piece of equipment to tinker and mess around with.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this whole test is the time in which it takes to complete.  According to Melinda Golightly, head of Microsoft’s Research and Development team, “The test will take only about fifteen minutes.  During our studies, it took lower animals – such as dogs and cats – and simians much longer to complete.  But in our human trials, they went much faster, indeed.”

Should the prospective customer fail the test, he or she will have three more opportunities to complete it with a passing grade – another unique trait that, according to Golightly, manifested only in the human studies.