Rants
Questions
Soapbox
Best Practices
Apply today for a FREE subscription to CIO Magazine!
Tue, Jul 29, 2008 11:14 EDT
|
Posted by: Laurianne McLaughlin in News Topic: ApplicationsBlog: Inside Tech
Current Rating: |
I grimaced when I read that Microsoft has kicked off a marketing campaign where they show a consumer a PC running a new OS, called "Windows Mojave," then reveal that it's really Vista, and show the consumer's happy surprise on camera. See, Vista isn't so bad after all! But it's true. As numerous bloggers have pointed out, Microsoft's effort looks like those old Folgers coffee commercials where restaurant coffee gets secretly switched.
Sure, they're going after consumers not enterprise IT buyers with this ad campaign, which you can peek at on the Mojave experiment site that Microsoft has put up (with more video yet to come.)
But how foolish do they think consumers are?
Microsoft has the financial resources to do marketing and PR on a scale that many companies envy. Is this really the best tactic?
"Look, this woman online thinks Vista is pretty, honey. Maybe we should check it out after all." You will not hear any of the folks in my neighborhood talking like this.
A larger advertising campaign to bolster Vista's image is also coming soon. Perhaps these new ads will make Microsoft sound less defensive and more aggressive. We'll see.
Microsoft has got its dander up, that's for sure. Intel recently passed on Vista for its own employees, a public ding that had to hurt in Redmond. Those Apple commercials continue to poke fun at square old PC guy. Microsoft could have used a Vista commercial or an online campaign that approached the cool of an iPod commercial. But it hasn’t been given one, at least not yet.
The Microsoft Vista team even threw a public punch at the analysts at Forrester Research last week, on the Vista team blog, after Forrester released a report advising that many enterprises could pass on Vista and wait for Windows 7. According to the Forrester report, fewer than one in 11 of PCs in large enterprises currently sports Vista. Microsoft takes issue with that number.
This report represents a change in Forrester's stance, since in April, Forrester told enterprises that Vista adoption was going well on the whole and not to be shy about early adoption. In its blog, Microsoft dubbed Forrester "schizophrenic."
Microsoft does need to do some marketing work with Vista. No question. But "Windows Mojave" won’t do the trick.
There's a funny thing about consumers. A ton of us work in technology-related companies or have someone in the family who does. In other words, we learned some lessons long ago regarding new operating systems. As veteran technology journalist Harry McCracken just pointed out in his blog, Vista will get better. Eventually. Historically, this has been the case with new operating systems (except for a few special misfits.)
But I'd guess that enterprise IT leaders who peek at the "Windows Mojave" experiment will have the same reaction that I had: Microsoft needs to wake up and smell some good coffee. Not Folgers. People just want a solid OS, sooner rather than later.
Microsoft is beginning to suffer the stereotypical inertia of a large, well established, ponderous company afraid of doing anything different. You can't blame them for being the way they are.
You can blame them for not heeding the prevalent wisdom that disruption comes from below and their success makes them vulnerable. Change is risky and they have too much to lose.
They will ride out the slide and have no catastrophic results to apologize to the street for, just a wake up call when they realize they are still in the station and the train left without them.
http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/ first page states: "We disguised Windows Vista ... so that regular people who've never used Windows Vista could see what it can do".
Then first conclusion on next page is "94% of respondents rated Mojave higher than they initially rated Windows Vista before the demo".
How can you ask to rate an OS to somebody you *know* that he didn't actually used it?!
Exactly. Apparently, some of the characters were so unconvincing, I suspect Mojave was their first lifetime operating system to see anyway.
My lack of Vista adoption, both personally and at the businesses that I control the IT investments at, has nothing to do with the technology, and everything to do with the EULA. I am not willing to agree to an EULA that gives Microsoft the right to shut down computers from Redmond if it decides that I do not have a legitimate copy. I can't put the businesses at risk. They are too small to have there own activation server.
For those of you about to claim they would never do this, it's already happened, albeit not on purpose, but it has.
While I agree that VISTA needs more work, lets not forget what this is: It's a MARKETING effort. It's not a "technology preview" or some black hat conference.
You realize marketing efforts of say Apple, and then fall back to a techie review when it comes to VISTA? Hmmm....I guess there's something to schizophrenic behavior suggested by Microsoft.
So, going by your "analysis":
- How stupid does Apple think we are? Is the "cool factor" the only deciding factor?
- The fact that corporations adoption of Apple is miniscule, what does that mean to Apple's marketing campaign?
I see geckos on TV telling me about car insurance, a duck squaking at me for more insurance, people trying to convince me that test driving a car can be done online, and a whole bunch of random individuals looking content or euphoric because of some drug.
No, I'm not stupid enough to make car and health insurance decisions based on an animal, test driving is done old school on the road, and my doctor always knows best. BUT, I recognize a funny, attention grabbing, even eye-opening ad campaign that makes me look into a particular product/brand.