I like Jerry Seinfeld. His show may have ended in 1998, but I still find myself saying "Cant-stand-ja!" And my wife and I often laugh about how my young daughter used to look like she was "doing the Elaine" when she danced. The guy is a celebrity in my home, even to my children who never saw the show during its first run. And we're not the only ones who feel this way about Jerry Seinfeld.

That said, is Microsoft's decision to use the 90's sitcom star as a pitchman a brilliant move? No. In fact, it's a decision of no consequence.

Jerry himself might explain it like this:

"You ever wonder why some companies seem ultra cool and hip while others seem like they're stuck in the '90s (maybe even the '80s)? I don't know about you, but boy, Microsoft is going a long way to seem "with it." It's like the nerdy kid in high school who throws on a white T-shirt, leather jacket and some pomade to try and look like he's with the in-crowd. Sure, it's the "in-crowd" circa 1950, but so what?"

News media reports say Microsoft's straining to seem relevant and connect with a younger audience. Common wisdom holds that it would help the company to seem more like Apple. But why do that?

Microsoft doesn't need relevancy with the 12-to-34 set.

I'll tell you what Microsoft needs. It needs to wipe away the perception that Vista's early stage incompatibilities still plague the OS and that it's any more complex to use for baseline tasks than a Mac.

Microsoft needs to find a way to get corporations, governments, and agencies to stop stalling and embrace Vista. That'll take some work because the companies most likely to buy and upgrade to Vista held off for a few reasons. They didn't want to deal with the cost and time necessary to retrain folks on the new OS, they were fearful about which legacy apps would no longer work or need costly upgrades, and because in these tough economic times, investing in your business is a tough sell.

Perhaps the Seinfeld plan can help Microsoft most in the consumer space, where Apple's new, near 10-percent market share is making the most ground. Can Seinfeld provide a compelling reason for Joe-consumer to choose Vista over a Mac? I doubt it.

Jerry Seinfeld will make consumers laugh and make them feel nostalgic for the glory days of the Seinfeld sitcom, but he won't change any minds.

If anything, the Microsoft Mojave experiment was a smarter move. It certainly cost far less than $300 millionor even $10 millionand was delivered in a subtle and smart way. I know there are critics who say it's all bogus because those on the clips didn't even use the operating system, but I disagree. You don't always combat perception with hard reality. Sometimes you use, well, influence. In the clips, I noticed that one of the things they showed participants was how to use "Mojave" (A.K.A. Vista) to make a DVD. Funny because that's exactly the task I zeroed in on when I wrote my "" column almost a year ago. The process really is easy. Is everything in the operating system as pain-free? No. Did Microsoft make its point with Mojave and, perhaps, influence a few non-believers along the way? Sure.

Of course, the Mac OS has its share of hard realities. I know many people who have lost work on the Mac or hit a technical brick wall that they can't seem to work around. And with greater popularity (especially in the consumer space) comes more worries about attacks. Social engineering criminals have already set their sights on Justin Long's favorite OS.

One sidelight to all this has been the buzz that Seinfeld used a Mac on his old sitcom. "Used" is a generous term. I don't think I ever saw himor any charactersit in front of the Mac SE-class system and type a thing. Even if he did, how is that relevant to computing in 2008? It's not.

In the end, Jerry Seinfeld can't really harm Vista or Microsoft, but I'd venture to say that he can't really help them either. Rather, the software giant needs to go old school. It needs a killer app connected to a killer ad campaign. It needs to deliver something smart, edgy, and honest. When I look into my crystal ball, I see Windows 7 and Stephen Colbert.