Comments on: Brands behaving badly: Microsoft save yourself

By: rob kleine

rob kleine — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 18:38:44 +0000

Grant – Nice to chat with you at ACR. re. Excel and Powerpoint replacements. Have you checked out http://www.openoffice.org/ ?

re. Gmail. If you configure POP access for gmail, you can read email even when no connectivity is available.

- rk

By: achievable ends

achievable ends — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 14:38:42 +0000

The World As Best As I Can Remember It, Rev. 013

I sat with a good friend of mine last night, enjoying a rather nice pint of Guinness as we discussed my book(let) and talked of the present state of technology and the web. My friend told me of how

By: achievable ends

achievable ends — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 14:13:15 +0000

The World As Best As I Can Remember It, Rev. 013

I sat with a good friend of mine last night, enjoying a rather nice pint of Guinness as we discussed my book(let) and talked of the present state of technology and the web. My friend told me of how

By: Grant

Grant — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 09:57:49 +0000

Matt, Trumba, a web-based calendar which allows Pam and I to keep our calendars separate or to join them. It is less laborious and more attractive than Outlook. But best of all: it is crash proof and machine independent. It is also OS independent, come to think of it. A good thing in our family where we are ecumenical when it comes to operating systems. Best, Grant

By: Matt Roth-Cline

Matt Roth-Cline — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 03:55:10 +0000

Grant, I must have missed it — what online calendar are you using to replace Outlook’s?

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 22:16:29 +0000

Steve, I guess I meant “playing safe” and as part of a larger edit, I have rewritten accordingly. Thanks.

And yes I’ve seen the Microsoft ads, and they are all about the creativity of the user. What what is needed here is some statement of the creativity of the corporation. But first they have to let this flourish.

And yes, superior performance was key. But in this maturing market everyone can deliver something close to this, now the brand will be assessed on other grounds. (And now that I am a mature user, I know that I don’t need the something comprehensive or perfect to get the job done. Thanks, Grant

Thanks, Grant

By: steve

steve — Wed, 05 Oct 2005 19:44:44 +0000

Actually, the last few Super Bowls were won by teams with stronger defenses than offenses…But I take your point about Microsoft.

If you look at their TV ads lately, they’re all about creativity and imagination. I just saw one with an actuary who writes comic books at night. So they may be trying to move in the direction you recommend. My problem with their advertising has aloways been the complete lack of humor. The comic book ad begins to have a glimmer of humor.

As a marketing proposition, Microsoft achieved its dominance when its software won the best reviewer ratings against the leading competitor. Word languished until it surpassed WordPerfect. Excel only took off after getting reviews claiming its superiority to Lotus 123. Liebowitz and Margolis document this pretty well in their Winners, Losers, and Microsoft. So perhaps superior product performance (defined in a new way) is still the key to their future.