The Cubicle Times

CUBICLE – Lately I am reading a lot of news on Windows 7, and all the hype on the Internet is really making me want to check it out myself, too.  In fact, I’ve seen the beta version at work a few months ago, but hey, playing around with the released version would be really awesome, too~

I think by now most people have heard about the failure (technical and marketing) of Vista, and Microsoft has certainly turned both around with the newly-released Windows 7.  Yeah, Windows 7’s got the Snap feature, Home Group, Pin, and many other nice and actually useful tools this time, but I am more interested in how they perform their marketing and how it’s going to be in the future.

Microsoft has been running this “I am a PC, and I am x years old” commercial to make sure that regular users know that it’s easy to operate, and even a little kid can do it, and of course, without breaking the banks like buying products from this other “fruit” company (I love the iPhone!!!).  I gotta admit that these commercials are getting a bit old, but they’re really well run, and the message is being carried out very well.  So people are buying, and everything’s beautiful? I am not sure…

If you’ve ever read this book “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey Moore, you’d know that technology products don’t sell like others.  You’ve got the Innovators and Early Adopters leading the way to buy these latest tech products, followed by the Early Majority, Late Majority, and finally the Laggards.  According to this book, somewhere in the Early Adopters phase, you will have a chasm you have to cross… Mr. Moore believes that there has to be a new marketing strategy for each phase of the product, and an early success does not mean you can cross the chasm! You will always have the guys waiting in line early in the morning to get the new toy, but how to reach out to the rest of them (or the next phase) will be a different story.

I think the next step will be getting the Windows XP lovers to upgrade their hardware and OS.  The Vista guys are probably dying to upgrade, but the die-hard XP regular users might get stuck because of all the troubles they will have to go through.  So yup, we’ll see how the great Microsoft gets to the next level, and it’ll be interesting how that “Fruit” company responds~