Microsoft Rhetorical Analysis Essay

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The Deceitful Cloud A cloud can be a white, puffy object that aimlessly floats hundreds, if not thousands of feet in the air. Or a cloud can be gray and gloomy, signaling imminent showers or thunderstorms. However, the identity of a cloud is beginning to change in the modern era. In the modern era, Microsoft is attempting to redefine a cloud as being a service that electronically stores data from a large variety of sources. In particular, Microsoft advertises their new cloud service, Azure, in Fortune magazine, in an attempt to appeal to businesses that require a cloud service to store data, and to meet their consumer’s needs on the web. Though the most peculiar part of the advertisement is the comparison of weather phenomena and Microsoft’s …show more content…

This easily allows companies to advertise their products to a select audience that may require their services, or an audience that is looking for new investment options. Foremost, the advertisement establishes ethos with the following, “Microsoft Azure scales to enable AccuWeather to respond to 10 billion requests for crucial weather data per day” (Microsoft). By providing an example of a well-known company using their cloud service, Microsoft convinces the audience with the perception of a reliable product. As a result, investors and business may be more inclined to adopt Microsoft’s service in hopes of receiving a product that can handle their business needs, like Accuweather is able to handle 10 billion requests on weather data. Contextually, Microsoft can potentially sway businesses due to the presented setting; yet, the advertisement may prove useless in its ability to sway those outside of the target audience. For example, Microsoft’s advertisement appeals to IBM’s cyber structure, but not to a farmer in the middle of Kansas. Furthermore, Stuart Hirschberg identifies one of the key elements needed in an ad, “The single most important technique for creating this image depends on transferring ideas, attributes, or feelings from …show more content…

To illustrate, Microsoft uses the weasel words “stands” to elicit a fighting reaction in the first phrase. When in fact, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the word as, “An action or condition of standing” (“Stands”). Microsoft’s cloud service does not physically stand up to a storm, nor does it combat a storm. Microsoft uses the word as a figure of speech, while also advertising that their cloud product is able to handle any challenge a company may endure in its daily operations. Moreover, the same phrase, “This cloud stands up to any storm,” (Microsoft) includes a second weasel word: “Any.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines “any” as, “In affirmative sentences it asserts concerning a being or thing of the sort named, without limitation as to which, and thus constructively of every one of them, since every one may in turn be taken as a representative.” The word “any” is a weasel word due to vagueness. The advertisement doesn’t differentiate between types of storms, nor does it promise to effectively deal with “any” storm. Instead, it can confront any storm or issue, though solving that issue is unclear, nor promised. The word “stands” also coincides with “any” because they both project the idea that Azure measures up to any disruption, like a metaphorical storm. As a result, the

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