By Todd Wasserman

Give Microsoft some points for trying. After years of sitting back as Apple defined its rival as dull and bug-addled in the long-running “Mac vs. PC” ads, Microsoft finally landed a punch with its latest campaign from Crispin Porter + Bogusky. The now-infamous “Lauren” ad was the best-known of the “Laptop Hunters” series and featured a young women trying to get a laptop for less than $1,000.

Lauren succeeded with a Hewlett-Packard model, but only after touring an Apple store and walking out unsatisfied. “I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person,” Lauren sniffs at one point, using the Nixonian strategy of positioning Apple as effete elites to Microsoft’s salt-of-the-earth Silent Majority. According to researcher YouGov, the strategy worked: Consumers surveyed now see Microsoft’s PCs as leading Apple for value, a flip-flop from earlier this year.

Microsoft’s not done by any means. In addition to a $100 million push for its search engine, there’s Windows 7, which Rob Enderle, principal of the Enderle Group, San Jose, Calif., predicts will be as big as—get this—Windows 95.

If Microsoft’s newfound pugilism is any indication, the recession has only made the tech industry more combative. Though tech is the segment that is the most naturally accommodating to online advertising (after all, its audience tends to be computer-savvy), even companies with a largely B2B focus exhibit a refreshing belief in analog media. Diane Dudeck, director of corporate marketing for Cisco Systems, for instance, dubs TV “an effective medium for us,” and is able to prove that with a spike in searches after a campaign runs. SAP, which has no consumer business to speak of, also included healthy amount of print in its latest “Clarity” campaign from Ogilvy & Mather, New York.

That’s not to say everything is sunny in techland. Forrester Research is predicting the industry will contract 3.1 percent this year and there are plenty of marketers in tech who think conventional media has had its day, like HP CMO Michael Mendenhall. But on the bright side, there are some indications that the consumer business could come roaring back later this year. In a May call with analysts, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said he thought PC sales had “bottomed out” in April and appeared to be heading back to normal. Says Enderle: “Consumers are starting to warm up and warm up nicely.”

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