It'll be a short-ish RCPU today, but we'd like to lead off with a topic we'll
come back to later in the week: Microsoft's marketing efforts. By now, you all
know about Redmond's ad campaign shifting from Bill and Jerry to the very PC
Guy Apple parodies so skillfully in its ads. More on that in future editions.
For today, though, we were shocked to see that a branding survey this week
placed Microsoft as the No.
3 brand worldwide, behind only Coca-Cola and rival IBM. Now, there are a
lot of branding surveys out there -- really, a whole lot -- and we understand
that they take a lot more into account than just how clever a particular ad
campaign is or how much a company gets hammered in the blogosphere.
So, the title of the entry might be a little harsh. Obviously, Microsoft has
built a brand over the years through more than just advertising -- and it's
a good thing, too, because Microsoft's ads have mostly been pretty lame, as
have some of its business-targeted marketing campaigns. The new crop of consumer-oriented
ads has promise, but there aren't many Microsoft plugs from over the years that
stick in our minds as having been particularly effective.
Still, having 90-plus percent market share in what is still (for now) the most
important category in the software market must have engendered some goodwill
over the years. And, for partners, that's a good thing. After all, everybody's
a consumer, even enterprise customers. If Microsoft's brand really is that strong,
maybe Redmond should forget about spending hundreds of millions of dollars on
advertising and focus on innovation and product marketing.
Of course, Microsoft's current ad campaign is mostly about trying to boost
Vista, so dumping the ads might be the first step to Redmond dumping the forlorn
OS altogether. And, really, that doesn't sound like that bad an idea.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 23, 20080 comments
Catch a wave, and you're sitting on top of the world. OK, maybe not, but
this
is still pretty interesting.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 18, 20080 comments
Very often, we use the royal "we" here at RCPU even though the same
person writes the newsletter 90 percent of the time because "we" just
sounds a little more elegant and perhaps less arrogant than "I." (Besides,
we do have an editing and production team -- all your editor does is type.)
But today, when we use the word "we" to describe folks waiting on
Windows 7, we're not just talking one person or even a few people. We're talking
about the masses of people who have rejected Vista (in which RCPU is, to be
fair, presently included) and are more than a little curious to see what its
successor will look like.
In fact, as far as we here at RCPU can tell, the "we" that's waiting
for Windows 7 represents the overwhelming majority of computer users -- meaning
a fairly impressive percentage of people on this planet. Maybe that's why rumors
about Windows 7 get approximately the same treatment as Sarah Palin these days -- every
rumor, leak or commentary about the forthcoming operating system gets exposed,
analyzed, criticized and dissected by bloggers and the trade press.
The hubbub gained steam this week when the release of the OS to private testing
spurred
rumors about a possible release date. Honestly, we haven't seen a Windows
OS get this much buzz since...well, um, since Vista. And we all know how that
turned out.
It seems in this corner of the Web as though Windows 7 has the potential to
be Super Bowl operating system -- desperately awaited, massively over-hyped...and
ultimately a disappointment. Oh, it's not that we don't think that it'll be
a good product. It's just that there's almost no way it'll make up for the general
malaise created by Vista, especially since it might not actually be that different
from Vista.
We here at RCPU wonder whether maybe Windows 7, if it does fail to sweep users
off their feet, will speed the move toward cloud computing and push the concept
of an operating system further into obsolescence. We also wonder how much of
a hit Microsoft will take -- more image-wise than money-wise, for the time
being -- if Windows 7 isn't a blockbuster.
As it stands, for Microsoft, partners and the very model of desktop computing,
there's actually a heck of a lot riding on Windows 7. Will it make up for the
damage Vista has done? We -- meaning the waiting millions, not just the folks
here at RCPU -- will see soon enough.
What do you want from Windows 7? If you didn't like Vista, what does Microsoft
need to do to win you back? Tell us at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on September 18, 20086 comments
Apparently, Paul Maritz's keynote
did
little to answer the big questions surrounding VMware. Really, Maritz giving
a keynote and not mentioning Microsoft, executive departures or the company's
over-a-cliff stock price is a little like ESPN doing a review of the year 2008
in sports and not mentioning the Olympics.
Meanwhile, still in Vegas, still at VMworld, Citrix busted out with the announcement
of XenServer 5.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 17, 20080 comments
With the DATAllegro acquisition closed, Microsoft is
making
some noise about SQL Server and data warehousing.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 17, 20080 comments
"You wouldn't know a diamond if you held it in your hand."
-- Steely Dan, "Reelin' In the Years"
Have you ever really gotten into a TV show, or maybe even a movie, and just
had a terrible sense of foreshadowing that the whole plot was about to go down
in flames like the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football? (Sorry, we
really tried to avoid the sports reference there, but your editor really enjoyed
watching his Dallas Cowboys win that game. Look at it this way -- we've officially
jinxed the Cowboys for the rest of the season. You're welcome.)
Anyway, you know what we're talking about here. It's the moment when your favorite
show jumps the shark -- and we're very sorry for the tired, late '90s reference
there, but if Microsoft can dredge up Jerry Seinfeld, we can get the ol' shark
reference back out. Maybe an actor leaves, or a key writer quits, or -- worst
of all -- a character gets pregnant, meaning a baby is on the way who will
magically be seven years old the next season. It's just a sad, frustrating feeling,
that sense of dreaded inevitability.
Well, that's the feeling a lot of folks have had for Microsoft regarding Dynamics,
Redmond's enterprise software entry. There's just so much potential there, but
Microsoft keeps messing with it -- not seeing, in the eyes of some, the diamond
it holds in its bejeweled, exquisitely manicured hand.
First, Dynamics was going to be about simplicity, ease of use and, most importantly,
cheapness -- if that's even a word. It was going to sweep into the enterprise
resource planning market from the bottom up, giving hope to those mid-sized
companies that trembled in the presence of monster ERP systems from SAP and
Oracle (although, to be fair, both companies do have mid-market offerings of
their own).
Then, somebody in Redmond -- keep in mind that the Dynamics leadership keeps
changing -- got the notion that Microsoft could go up market with its ERP
applications, and the big global systems integrators started sniffing around
in territory where previously smaller partners had ruled. Right there, Microsoft
began to approach the shark, as if to jump it; complicating Dynamics and jacking
up its price tag would have killed much of its appeal and alienated its most
potentially fertile market, mid-size businesses.
Well, according to RCP columnist, ERP guru and friend of RCPU Josh Greenbaum,
folks in the Pacific Northwest have apparently come
(back) to their senses and backed away from the shark again. Microsoft is
taking Dynamics back down-market, where Redmond hopes that its massive partner
army will crush the more direct-sales-oriented approaches of SAP and Oracle.
Greenbaum likes the move, and so do we -- especially from the partner perspective.
The global SIs haven't completely disappeared, and goodness knows there was
enough conflict in the Dynamics channel without them. But, with Microsoft mostly
backing off of the Fortune 500 with Dynamics, at least smaller, regionally and
vertically oriented partners will be back on the front lines of selling and
customizing the applications -- and companies will have an attractive, simpler,
lower-cost ERP alternative from a major (maybe the major) software vendor.
In other words, it's back to square one for Dynamics, strategically speaking -- back
to the first season (to continue the TV metaphor) when the concept was unique,
the writing was witty and the characters were engaging. Let's hope it stays
that way.
What's your take on Microsoft's Dynamics strategy? Tell us at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on September 17, 20080 comments
Your editor woke up to approximately 346 e-mails about VMware, virtualization
and VMworld this morning. While we understand and appreciate the importance
of virtualization here at RCPU, we're still not experts in the technology. Luckily,
though, RCPmag.com employs some folks who are, and one of them wrote up a pretty
darn good VMworld piece
here.
Also, don't forget to check VMworld news as it happens with our friends at
sister publication Virtualization
Review.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 16, 20080 comments
Here at RCPU, we realize that most of our readers probably don't share your
editor's passion for European "football," but trust us, this could
end up being a huge amount of fun. Apparently, Bill Gates -- whose net worth
seems to be dramatically underestimated in the linked article (surely we're
talking billions and not millions) -- is
thinking
about buying Newcastle Football Club in England.
Long story short, Newcastle has a passionate fan base with Yankees-like expectations...but
the club has more of a Cubs-like record historically. Current owner and Londoner
-- that's kind of like a Yankees fan owning the Red Sox -- Mike Ashley is putting
the club up for sale after just 16 months of ownership in part because he and
his family can't safely attend games. The fans are quite literally revolting
after the departure of popular manager Kevin Keegan, for which the fans blame
Ashley.
And Gates thought the Macworld crowd back in '97 was tough...
Posted by Lee Pender on September 16, 20081 comments
One of the Directions on Microsoft guys
thinks
it's possible, and they're not often wrong about the goings on in Redmond.
So, Vista inches ever closer to the scrap heap of history...with poor (OK, not
that poor, given his contract) Jerry Seinfeld in tow.
Posted by Lee Pender on September 16, 20080 comments