HTML 5 is likely to eliminate the need for mac or pc.

And that’s not counting GarageBand and other stuff that’s more than just intuitive. It saves me hours of work.

One of the cool tools is Automator. So if I were to create a podcast, wanted all the information inserted, and then exported to mp3, I can literally do that automatically. The closest thing to that functionality is the Actions tool in Photoshop.

So there are lots of goodies. It doesn’t help that PC is seen as fuddy-duddy, but the Mac looks and works better.

Plus the battery on my Mac Notebook lasts between 3-4 hours. Try telling that to a PC.

Sean
http://www.psychotactics.com

And I can tell you, that PCs may never lose their battle, but the Mac sure is biting at their heels. If you were to ask me which computer to buy, I’d recommend the Mac any day.

And not just because it’s cool. The way it’s built is so much smarter than a PC.

They won’t convince Mac users to switch but they might be able to retain current customers

I’d suggest they leverage their history of software innovation that supported and helped built the biggest businesses in the world, then segue into their vision and product development for the future. (They need to give their customers a byte of hope that things will improve.)

As part of that message, they need to remind their audience of the MS OS’s strengths — inexpensive and able to run the majority of the software that’s available.

They won’t convince Mac users to switch but they might be able to retain current customers.

If you own a space in the customer’s brain, then that’s the space you own. You can look at Macs any side up, and they represent ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ or ‘trendy.’

That’s their brand.
That’s their advertising.
That’s who they’ve projected themselves to be, and the consumer and paying customers have bought into the cool image.

Ok so what does PC stand for? PC doesn’t stand for cool. But PC stands for the ‘ability to tweak stuff.’

I’ve owned PCs for twenty years. And I can tell you that PCs are tweakable. There’s loads of hardware and software ‘tweakability’ for PCs.

Macs aren’t like that at all (and I have to say I love my Mac more than my PC, but it drives me crazy often enough).

On a PC, I can find software to do what I struggle to do with a Mac. For example, Macs will put in Matsushita drives that won’t let me play legal DVDs. And trying to find software that allows me to make my DVDs region-free is a nightmare. So I switched to the PC. Created a region-free disc, disc image…the works!

With a Mac, I can’t put in more hard disk space. And Apple decides if I need a Blu-ray or not. And so it’s very ‘un-tweakable.’

The word for PC is ‘tweak.’

No matter which way you look at a PC, their branding stands for ‘tweakability.’ The Mac on the other hand stands for ‘cool’. I can do cooler presentations on the Mac, than I can do on a PC, and believe me, I’m very, very capable of doing top quality presentations and delivering them. And so there are cool things I can do with my Mac.

What I’m saying is that I use both PCs and Macs. I have four PCs. And one Mac. And trying to convince me that a PC is cool, is a waste of Windows’ time.

Understand your brand.
PC= Tweakable.
Mac= Cooooool.

Then use those advantages to dominate your market.

Sean
http://www.psychotactics.com

The good things (off the top of my head) about PC’s are;
- Uncomplicated our of the box compatibility with the machines most people use at work.
- Almost every web site actually works on them because the world uses ie7 on a PC as their primary test case during site development. With more and more javascript on the web today, browser and machine compatibility is a very real problem for “Joe Plumber” (to borrow an election analogy).
- Many many product and cost options. You can buy machines three years out of date for nothing, build your own machine, or buy a Dell with a four year contract where someone will come to your house and fix it should you have any problems.

Like all good Marketing, MSFT needs to focus on highlighting its differentiators. Particularly with a slow economy going right now, it should not be hard to convince people that it is smart to spend less money to get a machine that is more broadly capable.

I would not target Mac aggressively because that gives too much credit to the “also ran”. It would be fun though, to paint Apple buyers as lemmings following a fad, paying extra money for a machine that maybe only does graphic design better even though the lemmings do not do graphic design.

Please don’t take my examples as my opinion. I am a Marketer, I like mac’s a lot, and I have and use both types of machines. Honestly, I use the PC mostly because my target market does, and I believe that one should eat at least a little of their own dog food.

Mac have always targeted themselves out of mainstream by targeting the ‘hip’ crowd. As much as I hate Vista, and can sometimes feel the need to throw my PC out of a window, (*cymbals*) Windows has always worked well for me and pretty much any computer I sit at will let me do what I need to do within a familiar operating system. Maybe if Mac can get into education they can change their market.

Having said all that, I still agree that from a marketing perspective, they made a mistake by ‘playing Apple’s game’. They should promote their strengths and benefits (re-frame the argument) in the immediate short term, while improving their product – ideally developing the next generation – as quickly as possible.

I actually thought your comments were rather insightful; MSFT really should concentrate on creating a rock-solid operating system built on new technology, similar to what they did with Windows NT 4.0

In fact, in my opinion, Windows NT 4.0 represents one of their very best products, and laid the groundwork for Windows XP, which is STILL a darn good OS.

As for Vista, I really can’t say, as I don’t have enough experience with it. Plus, I wouldn’t be their target audience, as I’ll gladly give up added feature sets for stability, reliability, and predictability – I’m just now thinking of switching to Leopard! So, I agree with you that the decision to make XP non-available probably isn’t a great one. Now, if a guy is in the market for a new computer and doesn’t want Vista, he’s stuck with either Mac or Linux. And I’d guess there are still a decent number of people out there who don’t want Vista.

Even still, what does it say about MSFT’s marketing skills that I don’t know what the benefits are to Vista? Think about that: all I know is that Vista was so bad that until a few months ago, one could still buy new PCs with XP installed – more than 1.5 years after Vista’s release! I actually had to go and look up Vista’s claimed benefits on Wikipedia.

Again, I think this points, at least in part, to Apple’s success in framing this debate. And to the fact that Microsoft’s current ads do nothing to re-frame it. Perhaps a good starter campaign for MSFT would be a more thorough and honest version of the “Mojave Experiment” that would both showcase Vista’s advantages and uncover the degree of false press around its putative shortcomings?

- Jeff

Well put. I’m sorry if I didn’t gather what the question meant, I simply think that they should counter the ad by doing just the opposite. Maybe less “counter advertising” and more work on quality assurance.

Now I like rocketfuel’s idea of reframing it, but even then, the “nerds” will start to get fed up with a less than nice operating system.

Does anyone think they ought to highlight their features similar to Apple’s iPhone commercials? Vista has some great features, and while they may or may not be original, people may see what they are missing with XP and get excited about giving Vista a chance.

What do you think about that idea?

I agree with you that the question was intended as “what should Microsoft do at this point in time).” That said, my first point was retroactive in saying that MSFT should have responded to Apple’s campaign sooner. Still, the spirit of the question was what should Microsoft do, not how would you remake the company / product into a more easily marketable package.

However, to Carter’s larger point, I would say that it is rapidly growing impossible to separate out how one should market from how one should produce. My point was that even if Vista is something of a lost cause, there are certainly reasons why a majority of the market decides to go with windows and even reasons why some people passionately believe in MSFT. Why not tap into that. Here’s an analogy:

Even though most people would argue that frozen custard is objectively superior to soft serve ice cream, I’m betting there’s a lot more soft-serve ice cream consumed than there is frozen custard. And I’d also bet there are people out there who genuinely and passionately prefer soft-serve, despite the pejorative remarks that frozen custard aficionados probably throw at soft serve ice cream.

So if your job is to market soft-serve, the last thing in the world you want to accept the mental framework of the frozen custard snobs, or spend your time hoping to remake your soft-serve franchise into a Frozen Custard stand. Why not get out there and market what’s fabulous about your product to the people who find it fabulous?

- Jeff

Don’t you think a company should be built upon solid products and not clever advertising moves?

The question was actually, “What do you think Microsoft should do?”

Better yet what if they are (not that I believe it) using a Boyd OODA loop. That would make the next few months very interesting.