At Paul Thurott’s Supersite for Windows, Paul Thurott agrees with a recent John Dvorak column noting that Microsoft is losing the PR war by being quiet, that it should be raising the volume now in advance of Windows 8, that the successful response to the relatively quiet launch of Windows 7 happened only because Vista was a disappointment, that not every product should be kept secret until just before its launch in the way Apple launches products, and that not every product should be launched the way Windows 7 was launched.

I agree with Thurrott that Microsoft has turned down the bombast and advance exposure to many of its key products, some good recent example being Windows Phone 7 and Kin devices, but not that it is out of the conversation. It is difficult to say if the “new humility” – or a convincing impersonation of it — has resulted in warmer receptions by the media, but I believe it has. More significantly, Microsoft is paying more attention to the user experience across its products in general. This doesn’t mean that Microsoft is trying to emulate Apple, although like Apple Microsoft is increasingly speaking through its products. Putting up and shutting up are not mutually exclusive.

Incidentally, it is quite amusing to read in the piece that, when it comes to promoting Apple’s products such as the iPad, according to Thurrott, “the press markets it for them, and makes people believe that this is somehow a big deal. It’s a self-replicating back-patting, buddy system, plain and simple.” A few dozen pixels to the right of that statement is the site’s tag cloud, which includes, among the most frequent terms, “Apple” and “iPhone.”