Windows 7 YouTube promo falls flat

Sam Varghese
Tuesday, 29 September 2009 05:34

Opinion and Analysis

Why not do the traditional type of advertising for Windows 7? Microsoft has an identity as a company that is focused on business users and it needs to play to this image.

But then as Dr Peter put it, once a person has reached a level of competence, they always look for a move to a position of incompetence.

Quite often this final move ends in the literal death of the person or the corporation in question. Is that what Microsoft is headed for?

There are lots of examples in the computer industry of this kind of move - one that comes to mind is Lotus 1-2-3 which took the market by storm as a spreadsheet but then died after it tried to add features and become all things to all men.

Netscape Navigator lost a good deal of its market share after it morphed into Netscape Communicator - but its death was hastened by the entry of Internet Explorer.

The home launch party idea has its own website - though Australians and residents of Hong Kong may be a little miffed that they are directed to the same site as that meant for UK residents.

Microsoft has a history of making promos that are bombs - you can see Steve Ballmer in action here trying to sell Windows 1.0, a silly MS-DOS 5.0 promo here and a Windows 386 promo here .

One would think that the company would at least be informed by its own stumbles. That does not seem to be the case.

A lesson for the folk in Redmond: money cannot buy image. It cannot buy a label. It can buy things.