The software giant's new -- and biggest -- advertising campaign, with comedian Jerry Seinfeld, has drawn largely negative reviews online after premiering Thursday during the NFL's first game of the season.

The ad is the start of a highly anticipated $300 million advertising campaign that Microsoft is launching in attempts to rebuff Apple's popular TV commercials, which have portrayed Microsoft and PCs as uncool.

In the commercial -- which can be found at Microsoft.com and on video sharing sites -- Seinfeld is walking through a mall when he spots Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at a "Shoe Circus" store. The comedian then helps Gates pick out a pair of shoes while the jokes come quick: showering with clothes on, Gates being a "10," platinum credit cards for a fictional shoe store. There is no direct mention of Microsoft or its operating system, Vista. The commercial concludes with the slogan: "The future, delicious."

Many technology and advertising blogs have turned to Seinfeld's trademark comedy description -- "nothing" -- to describe the ad.

"Huh?" wrote Abbey Klaassen for Ad Age. "You could be forgiven for not knowing what the heck Microsoft's new TV ad ... was about."

Dan Frommer, writing for the Silicon Alley Insider, pronounced the ad "not funny" and added that the mall shoe store setting "is not going to help Microsoft look any cooler." On the blog Techcrunch.com, Michael Arrington noted that the "tech and geek crowd is a little underwhelmed."

Brad Brooks, vice president of Windows consumer product marketing, said in a video posted on the Windows press Web site, that the ad is a "teaser" meant to "engage customers in a conversation ... to get the conversation going again about what Windows means in people's everyday lives."

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