Comments on: marketing: the cultral fault line inside microsoft?

By: John

John — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 14:27:01 +0000

Hugh,
Since you’re rubbing elbows with the Blue Monster, maybe you could ask him who talked him into slowing computers to a crawl by loading Vista with DRM and those bizarre and tortuous security protocols.
I know two people who have bought new computers lately. One, the president of my company, bought a Vista equipped computer for home use. As a result, our company will hang on to our old computers as long as possible and then consider switching to Linux. True, it’s only one small company, but I imagine this same scene is being played out everywhere.
Another friend bought a Linux machine for multi-media. He raves about the speed he gets from it because of the reduced clutter in the operating system.
Is marketing a conversation? Who the hell was the Blue Monster listening to when he dreamed up Vista?

By: Adriana

Adriana — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:18:01 +0000

“If you think Microsoft products are fine and that marketing is the weak link, I think you are in a state of market-blind delusion because as a consumer, Microsoft’s marketing is reaching me and I am hearing the messages about how Microsoft products can empower me to do great things or to connect with other people or simply to have fun, but I do not *TRUST* those messages—I don’t *BELIEVE* those messages—because my personal experiences have shown that Microsoft’s products are garbage, garbage, garbage.“
What he said and with extra added emphasis. Hugh, how many Microsoft products are you using at the moment? Perhaps you are happy with them, lucky you.
But I make no secret of my desire to migrate to another OS system before I am forced to ‘upgrade’ to Vista. I have already happily switched to OpenOffice. http://www.mediainfluencer.net/2007/07/the-not-so-open-open-standard/
… and there is simply no way I am going to be using any MS products as soon as I work out how to migrate to Ubuntu or perhaps even get a Mac.
No amount of marketing can sway my opinion about products that I had been forced to use for years and now there are alternatives. But I can’t even think of where I would see MS marketing… online? I think not, what with Firefox adblocker.

By: pcg

pcg — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 04:23:21 +0000

If the average Microsoftee thinks their products are just fine, and that the company is "only" suffering from marketing problems, it's all the better news for Apple. It seems they hand out the Kool-Aid at the door there, eh? "Everyone's jealous of us, THAT'S why people hate us." Uh, no. People hate you because you pass off utter shite as "software" and try to bully open communities into following you into your abyssal understanding of what's The Right Thing(TM) in today's technology landscape. Microsoft doesn't have an image problem. They have an image *symptom*, caused by their real problem: their complete lack of useful and innovative contributions to the community. And people are starting to wake up and see that, especially when they're confronted with the truly useful and pleasing products coming out of Cupertino. Just another case of MS trying to control the minds of the public in spite of overwhelming evidence against them.

By: Andy Roberts

Andy Roberts — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:25:25 +0000

Paris is kind of surreal isn’t it. I can understand anybody getting getting caught up in it.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:11:23 +0000

Most of the above commenters are dead on. A productive market conversation is more than discussing what color of lipstick you’d like on that pig.
The product features for MS Office — are they driven by customer demand, or by some programmers new bell-and-whistle? Faster hardware should make the old products perform better, so instead of faster products we get un-necessary features that clutter up a previously useful application. There’s the market disconnect. Find a way to give me what I need (even if I don’t know yet that I need it) not what you want me to have.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 00:34:56 +0000

Hugh,
Don’t let the Blue Monster cloud your vision. Saying that Google is one algorithm away from oblivion has a nice ring to it, and I’m sure it is a big hit with the Microsoft koolaid drinking crowd you are hanging with.
I don’t claim to be any expert marketer of technology or have a crystal ball to predict the future. I just know that other than the OS on this computer, Microsoft and I don’t really have a relationship. I’ve shifted all of my work to Google online products. That’s not an algorithm thing. It’s an ease of use thing. I have MS office on the same laptop and still prefer Google online documents. Just like music, Microsoft is missing out again.

By: K

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:53:07 +0000

Well, I used to be Microsoft’s biggest fan
until Vista.
Not compatible with any of my hardware
and holy crap, what the H*** did they do to Excel?
Accounting is usually responsible for approving IT spends. I don’t know an accountant alive that likes that version.
So do I think they only have a marketing problem?
Nope.
I’m holding onto my older versions of Excel for dear life.
And I’m not approving any upgrades to Vista.

By: Hrishi

Hrishi — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:36:35 +0000

Microsoft products are fine. Just about fine, not awesome. Isn’t that why you use an Apple, Hugh?
I’ve read many times around here — ‘make products worth talking about’. Well, we do talk about Microsoft products, but Brian has very well summarised what those conversations are like.
Plus, your doomsday theory for Google sounds a bit like global warming

By: Stephen Dann

Stephen Dann — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:58:36 +0000

“Google is just one algorithm away from Oblivion.“
Everytime I see the capitalised O, it turns that from “Google head to obscurity” into “Google is headed to the video games market”.
GoogleGameConsole anyone?

By: Brian Sexton

Brian Sexton — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:07:46 +0000

> “Our products are fine. Our marketing is the weak link, though.“
>
> I would agree.
I might agree with you about Microsoft’s products being fine if I hadn’t personally had more blue screens of death than I can remember, a red-ringed Xbox 360, three short-lived Microsoft mice, standards-deficient version of Internet Explorer after standards-deficient version of Internet Explorer (now with a horrible interface too), the driver and system resource nightmare that is Windows Vista, various Windows installation nightmares (e.g., the fact that the Windows XP installer is too stupid to read drivers from a secondary CD/DVD drive or even to back up to install a missed hard drive controller driver instead of forcing the user to quit completely and restart), pre-installed Microsoft Office trial crapware with an uninstaller that refuses to simply uninstall the software until I register and obtain a trial serial number, and on and on and on. Those are just off the top of my head.
If you think Microsoft products are fine and that marketing is the weak link, I think you are in a state of market-blind delusion because as a consumer, Microsoft’s marketing is reaching me and I am hearing the messages about how Microsoft products can empower me to do great things or to connect with other people or simply to have fun, but I do not *TRUST* those messages—I don’t *BELIEVE* those messages—because my personal experiences have shown that Microsoft’s products are garbage, garbage, garbage.

By: John Dodds

John Dodds — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:45:48 +0000

The product is the key building block of “marketing” so if they are self-satisfied that their products are merely “fine” and that that is good enough, then what they call marketing will not be enough.

By: Frederic

Frederic — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:23:11 +0000

Remarkable products get people conversing about you. As long as MSFT products are perceived as average/normal/unremarkable, nobody will get excited over the new products.

By: Dennis Howlett

Dennis Howlett — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 11:20:03 +0000

Stuart makes a great point about listening. This is something SAP has been working on for 4 years and it is paying off big time.
They now have the smarts to go into a whole new market Microsoft can only dream about. They’ve accumulated a shed load of skill plus 900,000 developers on one network and 200,000 business process experts on another. That’s awesome.
It’s equipped them to make their recent on-demand play stick. Even so, they’ve not done as good a job explaining it as they could. That’s not an impediment because they’re always willing to pick up the phone and listen, or meet up with key influencers.
And for pure kudos, how many CEOs — like Ballmer — are prepared to engage directly with the blog community? I can name one: Henning Kagermann, CEO of SAP plus his deputy Leo Apotheker.
Those are the lessons Microsoft should be drawing upon IMO. Forget bold statements and one liners. Save those for the ad-men.
Give the community substance and lsten for the feedback.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 11:18:35 +0000

“Google is just one algorithm away from Oblivion.“
You think so?

By: Colin Henderson

Colin Henderson — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 10:54:10 +0000

Hugh, it would be a mistake to think that its only a marketing issue, and I use the word marketing advisedly, re pricing, packaging as well as promotion. Having jumped to Linux after being on DOS and Windows forever, I see some key distinctions in how the two systems work. I think there are lessons there for Microsoft.