Windows 7: Lower your head

Introduction: In a new era dominated by consumers, even a monopolist must change its marketing strategy.

On the afternoon of October 23, I walked into the art district of Beijing 798 Factory. The roadside was full of Windows 7 billboards. Coming to the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, it is already a sea of ​​joy. The scene is filled with nearly 200 different computers. In addition to the new features of Windows 7, participants can also play games.

The lights in the main venue are gone. After "one" to "seven", Liang Nianjian, chairman and CEO of Microsoft Greater China, wearing a Windows 7 logo fur collar and a headset, sat on a high stool and shook his head with music, just like a professional DJ. same. Later, he and Mike Nash, Microsoft's vice president of the Windows platform strategy, demonstrated some of the new features of Windows 7. Whenever they complete a demonstration of a new feature, the scene sounds like a tsunami-like cheer. At the end of the conference, when the red star singer Ren Renliang sang a song customized for Windows 7, "The Window of Dreams." On the evening of the same day, Hunan Satellite TV's "Daily Up" program, which has a high audience rating, recorded a special program for Windows 7. The famous host Wang Han also talked about Windows7.

The King of Marketing's Mistakes

"Microsoft is not a technology company? Does the entertainment and fashion style of Windows 7 mean that Microsoft will subvert the past tradition and go "Technology and fashion combined with the route?" In the face of a reporter's "outs" issue, Liang Nianjian smiled: "In fact, we have been targeting the consumer market from the very beginning, very trendy, we have not changed." >

Liang Nianjian said yes, it is marketing, not technology, that created the "king of software" Microsoft. You know, Microsoft's first operating system DOS is not even developed by itself but bought from others. Since its inception in 1975, Microsoft's products have often been no better than competitors, but they have been able to repeatedly beat the various princes who came to challenge. One of the most important weapons is marketing. In terms of marketing, Microsoft has dropped a lot of attention. In 1997, Microsoft spent almost $2.9 billion on marketing and sales, accounting for 25% of the year's revenue, while Microsoft's investment in research and development was only 16%. Just to promote Windows 95, Microsoft spent $500 million that year.

The secret of Microsoft's success has long been known. In 2000, four McKinsey experts published the book The Secrets of Success in the Software Industry. They surveyed more than 100 software and service companies from October 1996 to June 1998 and conducted 500 in-depth interviews. They concluded that marketing is the most important for mass market software companies. The success factors, followed by cooperation activities, globalization, and personnel management, and software development is only ranked fifth.

In the past, Windows product launches were not only the top priority in the IT industry, but also meant an absolute heavyweight marketing event that was as hot and sensational as Apple today. Let's go back to August 24, 1995, when Windows 95 was released, Microsoft rented a 12-acre stadium in Raymond, and set up dozens of tents. It took more than 200 people to spend 20 days. The time is set. In the evening, the Windows 95 logo was lit up on the Empire State Building in New York, and the British "Times" was released for free by Microsoft on the same day. Of course, it contained a large number of Windows 95 ads. In Australia, shipping Windows 95 CDs even used warships.

The previous version of Windows 7 Windows Vista was released in January 2007, and it was the most luxurious New York Times Square. However, the market performance of this product, which has been developed over five years and has been highly anticipated by Microsoft, is very disappointing. Vista, which was once predicted by analysts to become the most mainstream operating system this year, still has less than 30% market share. Windows XP, which has been "commissioned" for 8 years, still occupies the majority of the market, and there is no market at all. The intention to abdicate. What is even more embarrassing for Microsoft is that many consumers are asking for the uninstallation of pre-installed Vista when purchasing a PC, instead of replacing it with XP.

For Microsoft, which accounts for more than 90% of the PC client operating system, this is an unforgettable failure, and the problem is largely in marketing. For example, many consumers at the time saw the Vista promo of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and comedian Jerry Seinfeld, but they were both obsessed by the two in the shoe store and at home. The dialogue made it in the clouds. Although Vista's advertising cost investment was not lost this time, although Vista's advertising word is "Windows is not a barrier", the actual effect is to form a barrier between Microsoft and consumers. Even more difficult to understand is that although Microsoft has long planned to launch Vista in 2007, it still spent a lot of resources in 2005 and 2006 to promote the benefits of Vista's previous version of Windows XP.

So, in 2008, people saw Apple’s endless commercials, ruthlessly mocking Vista, and Microsoft’s counterattacks were not only weak, but also did not catch counterattacks. Focus. Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft, a market research firm, believes that Microsoft did not seize the opportunity to release the SP1 patch in February of that year, and strongly promoted to consumers that Vista has a lot of security and compatibility. improvement of.

New Marketing Model

Microsoft can no longer afford the second major failure. In July 2008, Microsoft made a major adjustment to its organizational structure, splitting its core division "Platforms and Services" (PSD) into two departments, Windows/Windows Live and Online Services. These two departments were originally independent. In 2005, it was merged into PSD. At the same time, Kevin Johnson, the former PSD leader who has been with Microsoft for 16 years, also announced his departure. At this time Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has realized that bundling Windows with the online service department will only spread Microsoft's marketing resources.

Not long ago, Microsoft also tried to break the organizational structure by product line, set up a cross-product department dedicated to consumers, and strive to integrate more internal resources to provide consumers with a better experience. "This was an incredible move in the past Microsoft," commented a industry insider who followed Microsoft for many years.

The head of the Windows/Windows Live division is Microsoft Senior Vice President Steven Sinofsky, who is the head of the original Office product line. He values ​​marketing and The consumer experience. Wu Shixiong, the former chief marketing officer of Microsoft Greater China, still remembers that Snofsky used to take a vacation time in China for a month. As a regular employee, he followed Chinese employees to various places to participate in various marketing activities to fully understand Chinese consumers' buying habits and needs.

Before the release of Windows 7, Microsoft’s direct customers, the PC vendors, felt the illusion of Microsoft for the first time: Microsoft not only handed the test version of Windows 7 to their hands in a long time, but also very Listen to their opinions with humility. At the same time as the release of Windows 7, the distribution of Windows 7 in the retail market has been completed simultaneously, resulting in a very good sales atmosphere. When Vista was released, the retail channel did not get the spot, and did not receive much training. Many promoters couldn't even tell Vista about the features.

"Windows 7 is going to succeed, and of course the product itself is the most important thing," said Mike Nash, Microsoft's vice president of Windows platform strategy. In response to the bloated and slow running of Vista, which has the most complaints from users, Windows 7 started to slim down the desktop and notebook applications and raised the speed. After Microsoft discovered that the netbook market is also very important, it specifically targeted The netbook has once again been slimmed down. In response to Vista's most complaining compatibility issue, Microsoft has also made great efforts to test the compatibility of the most commonly used tens of thousands of software one by one, ensuring that they can run on the Windows 7 platform. At the press conference, Liang Nianjian was proud that almost all domestic banks' online banking systems and Taobao's online stores were able to run normally on the Windows 7 operating system.

In order to encourage users to use Windows 7, Microsoft has made some adjustments in price. For example, in the US market, it is also Home Premium. Windows is priced at $119.99, which is 25% cheaper than Vista's listing price ($159.99). In the Chinese market, the price of Home Basic is as low as 399 yuan.

In addition, Microsoft has simplified the product version. Vista is divided into two major versions, the Home Edition and the Enterprise Edition. Both of these versions include the Ultimate Edition, which makes users feel at a loss. Windows 7 no longer distinguishes between Home and Enterprise. It is superimposed into Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate according to the number of features. More advanced versions include All features of the low-level version. Moreover, if consumers had to upgrade to a higher version after purchasing a lower version of Vista, they would need to re-purchase a new version of the CD and spend a few hours reinstalling the system. Now, Windows 7 upgrade to the high version only needs to purchase an upgrade key, which can be easily completed in 10 minutes.

In order to promote Windows 7, Microsoft can be said to make every effort. For example, in order to break into the increasingly popular netbook market, the U disk version of Windows 7 has been customized. It is said that all versions of Windows 7 can support netbooks, and no previous version of Vista can run smoothly on netbooks. At the same time, in order to encourage users to upgrade as soon as possible, Microsoft China also launched a pre-installed genuine version of Vista advanced version can be upgraded to Windows 7 free of charge, all consumers who purchase genuine Windows 7 can also download and use Microsoft's new security software for free. .

In terms of marketing, Microsoft began to focus on civilian cards. At the press conference in New York, the first to be a four-and-a-half-year-old girl, Kylie, one of the protagonists of Microsoft's $300 million series of commercials "I am a PC." In the commercials, Kylie is skilled at operating a computer with Windows 7 pre-installed to transfer and post photos. In addition to Kylie, Microsoft also launched several other cute children's protagonists, and the last sentence of their lines is "I am a PC." Obviously, Microsoft is trying to tell consumers through this series of simple but clear commercials that Windows 7 is extremely easy to use.

For Windows 7, the whole Microsoft has moved. "In the past, Microsoft's new product release was only a matter of Microsoft's product division, and this time all the products including OEM, OEM, retail, and marketing were mobilized." Wu Shixiong felt that the marketing of Windows 7 gave him amazing. feel.

Low and noble heads

Using the release of Windows 7, Microsoft is trying to please consumers, and Microsoft, which has a low head, has become so cute, although it Many changes are also caused by the situation.

Not only Microsoft, Microsoft's partner Intel (blog) also found that the days of "the emperor's daughter does not marry" are gone forever. In the past, leading vendors such as Microsoft and Intel relied on the release of new products to force the market to run forward, rather than whether consumers would like it. However, with the popularity of the Internet, consumers are beginning to pay more attention to new Internet applications. Microsoft and Intel are now a bit embarrassed in the traditional PC market. In the past, the situation of releasing a product fire will no longer appear. It is. Similar to Microsoft's Vista situation, Intel was initially unable to push the netbook because of fear of affecting its mainstream product line, but the netbook is still on fire and threatens Intel's mainstream product line. Although Intel spent a lot of effort to push CULV (consumer-grade ultra-low voltage) notebooks this year, it still failed to pull the market.

This has also led to the lessons of leading vendors like Microsoft and Intel: In today’s Internet age, vendors of products don’t tell consumers what to do, but what they need, The era that marks the king of consumers is coming.

"I want to make the song of happiness simpler, let the fate leave time to test, I will smile in front of you, forever." "The Window of Dreams" sounded, Windows7 China Conference The announcement is over. This is Microsoft's most important product in history, can it help Microsoft withstand the test of time?